Tag Archives: Europe

Belgium: ACV – CSC takes action on the 28 April

Every year ACV – CSC takes action on the 28th of April to raise awareness around health and safety at work.  In 2015 focusing on the REFIT-program of the European Commission, several problems within the dangerous substances legislation  (occupational limit values, carcinogens and reprotoxic substances) and organising a large information campaign on the use of dangerous substances. Following actions took place:

  1. In all Belgian companies with workers representatives, but also in some SME’s ACV-CSC distributed leaflets with information on the safe use of dangerous substances, employers and workers obligations. (leaflet in French and Dutch )
  1. ACV-CSC prepared a publication on the REFIT-program of the European Commission to explain what it is really about, a deregulation of workers rights, also in the field of health and safety (link to the REFIT-publication in French •  More information.
  1. On Tuesday, 28th of April,  together with FGTB, CGSLB and ETUC ACV-CSC visited our minister of labor, Kris Peeters and asked him:
  • To make sure that REFIT won’t affect the health and safety of workers.
  • To defend the necessary revision of the European carcinogens directive with a priority list of 50 binding occupational exposure limits and the integration of the reprotoxic substances in the scope of this directive.
  • To defend a harmonisation of OELs in the European Community to prevent disloyal competition at the expense of workers health.
  • To take action on a national level to integrate reprotoxics in Belgian legislation on carcinogens.

More information on this visit you can find here in French  and in Dutch.

 

Europe: Unions say STOP treating protection from hazardous chemicals as “red tape”

For this 28th April, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) will run a highly visible action, focusing on the 100,000 people who die every year in the EU as a result of occupational cancers, as well as the 150,000 people who have died waiting for the EU to approve the Directive on Carcinogens and Mutagens at Work, held up since October 2013 by an EU review of ‘red tape’.

To mark the International Workers’ Memorial Day, the ETUC is planning to meet with Commissioners and MEPs at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, and will participate in events in Belgium and Latvia.

ETUC General Secretary Bernadette Ségol will meet European Parliament President Martin Schulz and European Employment Commissioner Thyssen in the European Parliament in Strasbourg .

ETUC 28 April webpages

The artwork below will be used at these events.

etuc1 etuc2 etuc3