European Week for Health and Safety at Work

BIRKIRKARA, Malta - Oct. 23, 2013 - PRLog -- The Week is coordinated by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) and implemented by its partners in the EU’s 28 Member States and beyond.

The European Week focuses on broadcasting the key messages of the current Healthy Workplaces Campaign ‘Working together for risk prevention’. It provides a crucial focus for campaign activities and sees numerous events organised across Europe, highlighting the benefits of applying good leadership with worker participation.

To commemorate the European Week for Health and Safety at Work, the Occupational Health and Safety Authority in Malta organized a seminar with the theme “Saħħa u sigurtà fis-settur tal-kostruzzjoni” (Health and Safety in the Construction Sector).

Keynote speakers from the Authority, the Federation of Building and Civil Engineering Contractors (FOBC) and the Malta Developers Association (MDA) delivered presentations on the importance of health and safety at the place of work, and the implementation of safety measures at construction sites. The seminar was well attended by over 100 participants and various points of general interest and opinions on how to safe guard workers in the construction sector were identified during a discussion which followed the seminar.

Dr Christa Sedlatschek, Director of EU-OSHA, emphasises that ‘the most effective results in managing and improving the safety and health of an organisation are found when workers and their representatives are actively engaged with management - leadership alone is not enough. Enterprises with high worker participation combined with high management commitment are 10 times more likely to have a documented occupational safety and health (OSH) policy in place. The benefits of such an approach are enormous and include reduced business costs and increased productivity, fewer accidents and improved prevention and control of workplace risks.’

A dedicated campaign website, http://www.healthy-workplaces.eu, provides numerous practical tools that can help organisations improve OSH management and worker participation in the workplace. A number of preventive solutions intended for the construction, healthcare, and hotel, restaurant and catering sectors include checklists that can be used by managers and employees in these industries. Also, employers and workers can refer to actions from EU-OSHA’s case studies and implement them within their organisations. The case studies, which provide excellent examples of effective occupational health and safety management, are taken from a diverse range of industries and sectors, and are stored in an online and easily searchable database.

The OSH campaign toolkit section provides ideas and examples of how one can convey the campaign messages in the most effective manner.