Europe
The European Commission has launched a consultation of the social partners over future revisions to the directive on carcinogens and mutagens. This consultation covers substances that should be covered by the directive and specific exposure limits as well as questions as to which substances might need to be added. The social partners have until the end of September to respond and to indicate if they are willing to negotiate on the directive.
In 2004, the European Commission carried out the first-phase of a consultation of the European social partners on the protection of workers from exposure to carcinogens, mutagens and substances toxic for reproduction at work. This confirmed that action needed to be taken at Community level to introduce better and standardised methods across the EU, and to tackle situations involving workers' exposure. On 9 March this year, the Commission launched the second-phase of the consultation to obtain the opinion of the European social partners on the content of a possible Community proposal in this
On 20 December 2017 EPSU submitted a contribution to the second phase social partner consultation on revisions of the Carcinogens and Mutagens Directive (2004/37/EC). This was done in close cooperation with the ETUC and the ETUI. EPSU's contribution focuses on measures and regulation needed for a better protection of the workers in the health care sector from exposures to, manipulation or use of cytotoxic drugs. EPSU had two main requests in view of the revision of the directive.
A new report from the ETUI identifies more than 70 carcinogenci substances which, it argues, should be subject to binding exposure limits under European legislation. The report says that a significant reduction in worker exposure levels is urgently needed and that the lack of adequate prevention in the workplace is currently causing more than 100,000 cancer deaths each year. Read more at ETUI