Ouvrage auteur unique
| Résumé : | The origins of the present research cannot be separated from the formation of the European Trade Union Technical Bureau for Health and Safety itself, initiated in 1989 by the European Trade Union Confederation to help strengthen the trade union potential for influencing the European decision-making process in health and safety at the workplace. The TUTB came into being at a watershed moment when two directives of major significance to workers were being adopted : they were framework Directive 89/391, based on article 118A of the Treaty, and Directive 89/392, based on article IOOA, dealing with the design of machinery. Two reasons made it an immediate priority for the European trade union movement to survey and begin monitoring national transpositions of the framework Directive. Firstly because the existence and content of the Directive were the product of trade union action, but also because it offered new opportunities for radically changing the terms of union action in Europe. In itself, it is a " minimum requirements ,, directive which leaves the primary responsibility for improving working condi tions with the Member States. Taken together with the individual direc tives adopted under it, however, it provides a basic foundation of legislation common to ail the countries of the European Union. The issue for the European trade union movement is not only to encourage transpositions which give workers better health and safety protection, but also to ensure that the new national provisions go beyond the strict requirements of the Directives. The body of work represented by the gamering of information, analysis and discussion of how the Community directives are being incorporated into national systems is today " in mid-stream ,, - a first stage focused solely on the analysis of legislation - in an area which directly affects the lives of millions of workers, and where the most important thing is to change their actual working conditions. An examination of the practical changes which this directive can bring about is also essential, but cannot be done with the TUTB's resources alone. For that reason, the present work concentrates essentially on the legal aspects. Our overriding aim was to contribute both to the national and European debates on the transposition of the framework Directive. Working towards this ambitious goal meant monitoring developments in the 12 Union Member States and the EFTA member countries. A detailed inventory of the situation which had to accommodate the Direc tive was the first essential ; that was done in an initial report at the end of 1992 as the directive was brought into force. The present study incor porates the essential elements of that survey with the exception of the EFTA countries. This first publication provided the TUTB with the opportunity to launch a European debate at a conference held in Luxembourg at the end of 1992, attended by representatives of the ETUC's member con federations, members of the Workers Group of the Luxembourg Advisory Committee, trade union experts and experts from other concer ned circles throughout Europe. The conference showed the importance of the TUTB's work in promoting the use and application of the direc tive in ways which were more than mere lip-service to its provisions. The participants stressed the importance of a joint effort to deepen and give material effect to the principles laid down by the Directive. Two priority themes were identified : risk assessment and trade union train ing. The TUTB's programme of activities includes policy objectives on these and aims to develop concrete activities common to European trade union organizations. The second stage was to systematically monitor the national debates as the basis for a comparative study of preventive services (coverage, tasks and composition) and worker participation. This comparative study was not carried out for the EFTA countries, however, for various reasons. Firstly, because these countries were the first (during the Seven ties) to legislate improvements in the work environment through preven tion of risks at source. For another thing, although the transposition of the framework Directive is provided for in the Agreement on the European Economie Area, it raises different issues to those which have arisen in the countries of the European Union. Furthermore, since several of these countries have applied for membership of the European Union, they may be examined in that context at a future date. At the time of writing, Member States like Germany, Spain, ltaly and Greece have still not transposed the framework Directive at ail, some countries have transposed it piecemeal, and yet others have rushed it through, transcribing the letter of the Directive without really incorporat ing the spirit of its requirements into their national preventive systems. This is a serious situation, and one for which the European Commis sion must chiefly be called to account as the body responsible not only for verifying the national instruments of transposition, but also for following-up and adapting European directives to changing patterns of work and changes in technology. As things stand, many questions exist about the Commission's resolve to institute proceedings in the European Court of Justice against Member States who have yet to transpose the Directive, and especially those who, in transposing it, have flouted the minimum requirements prescribed in the directives adopted on the basis of article 118A. |
