Editorial

Editorial Archive

Occupational Safety and Health for Agency Workers in temporary jobs: SLIC campaign running from October 2017 to May 2019

November 2017
Sheila Pantry OBE

The Senior Labour Inspectors Committee (SLIC) has launched an information and enforcement campaign to promote occupational safety and health (OSH) of temporary agency workers and cross-border workers.

Entitled Safe and healthy work for temporary jobs, the campaign runs from October 2017 to May 2019.

Employment in temporary work agencies in Europe has increased rapidly during the last decade. Temporary agency workers may be particularly vulnerable, with studies showing they experience a higher incidence of occupational accidents than other groups of employees.

This campaign is an opportunity to inform and raise awareness among the temporary agency worker, the temporary work agency, and the user undertaking about their obligations on occupational safety and health protection. The most relevant points in the OSH protection approach are to inform the temporary workers on:

• the workplace conditions of the user undertaking before their assignment
• OSH training in general and in particular on the risk occurrence in workplaces
• health surveillance and special medical examination with regard to dangerous risk at the workplace
• the advantages of the risk assessment and the resulting safety measures, such as the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
• the need to notify the occupational accidents and diseases to authorities

The sectors where temporary agency workers are more frequently employed are: construction, agriculture, food manufacturing, metal industry, transport/logistics, health care, hotel/restaurant/catering (HoReCa) and cleaning services.

Inspections both in the temporary work agencies and in the user undertakings will be carried out. The campaign includes information and awareness-raising activities, and a pilot experience on cross-border enforcement.

The Committee gained formal status in 1995 through Commission Decision 95/319/EC to give its opinion to the European Commission on all problems relating to the enforcement by the Member States of Community law on health and safety at work.

For further information on the campaign, visit: www.european-temporary-work-campaign.eu/overview-of-the-temporary-agency-workers

OSH UPDATE + FIRE

You will find many examples of good practices, information, guidance and advice, research reports, leaflets and much more in OSH UPDATE + FIRE www.oshupdate.com – THE key tool to all your health, safety and fire information requirements

• OSH UPDATE is easily searchable by keywords, titles, journal names, standard number, authors, organisations, and will keep you and your colleagues alerted to hot topics such as air pollution, workplace health risks, the health risks of nanotechnology, stress and aggression in the workplace, preparedness and business continuity, risk assessment, corporate killing and corporate social responsibility, bio-terrorism, management of road risks, all aspects of fire and related fire topics, workplace health and safety and much more.
• OSH UPDATE + FIRE is long established from mid 1990s with some of the databases in the service having information going back over 80 years or more.
• Arguably the largest electronic collection in the world in these very wide subject areas from worldwide sources. There is a special collection of OSH legislation, guidance and advice within OSH UPDATE and FIRE!
• The databases and contents are from worldwide class organisations such as the US NIOSH, the UK Health and Safety Executive, the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work and many more similar organisations in the world.

This time of the year is a good time for all organisations worldwide to review their health and safety goals and decide on the training or re-training that is needed for all levels of staff and update their information resources.

Check out these successful efforts that are in OSH UPDATE + FIRE and introduce them into your workplace!

It is always good to keep researching and finding out if there are services and other ways of keeping up-to-date in this fast-changing world of ours. Time is precious and many people are really stretched in their jobs and find it difficult to keep ahead in current knowledge that they should have for their jobs. So, help is at hand for those working in health, safety and fire and fire related industries which are brought together in an easy to use web service entitled OSH UPDATE + FIRE www.oshupdate.com that is constantly updated.

Then try these long established Practical, Affordable Solutions for your health, safety, fire and environment information needs from Sheila Pantry Associates Ltd.

For a 15 DAY FREE NO OBLIGATION TRIAL contact: Sheila Pantry Associates Ltd | email: sp@sheilapantry.com | or fill in the Interest form www.sheilapantry.com/interest.html

Update your 2017 and 2018 diaries with training for workers at all levels

Whether you are a manager, safety representative, supervisors check out the training needed in your workplace. Look at the latest additions to the Diary of Events and you will see plans have been made already worldwide for the rest 2017 and well into 2018 offering training courses, symposiums, webinars and conferences in many places in the world on a wide range of subjects.

Do not put off training for yourself and your staff. In these days of tighter budgets perhaps training may be put on the “back-burner” – but think again how you can keep up with the latest techniques and training opportunities.

Remember that even if you cannot attend these many events, speakers and organisers are often willing to share their knowledge. Look at the details – where possible, we add in the web sites of these events so you can request further information. And do let me know if you are organising any OSHE events so that these can be added to the OSHWORLD Diary.

FOCUS

This month’s OSHWORLD FOCUS is entitled Knowing what you do not know!

OSHWORLD – your portal to some great OSH web sites in the world

Wherever you are in the world have a look at your health, safety, chemical, fire and environment procedures in your workplace and update them. Your review may also indicate training requirements and re-thinking how systems and services can be improved. This is where the free-of-charge OSHWORLD can help you.

Resources

In addition to the above we hope that you find the information in OSHWORLD useful in your daily work. Globally there are continually new titles, news items, new products so remember to look at the News to find the latest information from a range of worldwide sources.

Use OSHWORLD as your portal to many hundreds of validated and authoritative web sites that you can find in the Country and Subject links we offer. New subject topics are constantly brought together on web sites, e.g. nanotechnology and the workplace.

Most information services have a reference shelf where you can quickly check the reference sources – so OSHWORLD brings you a collection of Reference sources and also teaches you how to Search the Internet.

Visit the various Bookshops to order any new document as they are being published. Many of these Bookshops have a constant stream of new titles available.

Please send any suggestions or comments about OSHWORLD – your portal to validated and authoritative information. Remember also to look at our other really useful sites – www.sheilapantry.com and why not make a free entry about your company’s products in www.shebuyersguide.com.

Don’t forget to learn from history – visit www.historyofosh.org.uk
An invaluable resource for students, lecturers, trainers, health and safety professionals and others with a general interest in industrial history, the site sets out developments from the 1802 Factory Act all the way through to the most recent regulatory changes made by the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

Don’t work harder – work smarter! Be ahead of the game.

Well are you having a zero accident, incident-free and healthy year in your workplace? Some would argue that this is not possible! But keep on trying again in 2017.

And do continue to make plans for your campaigns for 2018 and beyond!