By Martin Banks - 2nd November 2009
These measures have to be combined with better information
Jukka Takala
The head of an EU agency has called for "better awareness" of workplace health and safety issues.
Jukka Takala, director of the European Agency for Safety and Heath at Work (OSHA), said,"We want to make people aware of the risks that they face at work and how they can manage them."
His comments come in the wake of the latest OSHA research that reveals that "millions of people" in the EU are injured or have their health seriously harmed" in the workplace.
About every three-and-a-half-minutes someone in the EU dies from work-related causes, says the Bilbao-based agency.
Takala says this is despite the commission's "community strategy for health and safety at work" that aims to cut work-related accidents by a quarter and to reduce occupational illnesses.
He pointed out that the right to work in favourable conditions is enshrined in the UN declaration of human rights.
The Finnish official says that while legislation is important, "it does not work alone and we will never have one inspector for each workplace."
Quite often, says Takala, "good information" of the risks that people face at work "is all that is required" for an employer to address health and safety issues.
"These measures have to be combined with better information and awareness-raising, "said Takala, whose organisation this year has sponsored the "Healthy Workplaces" film award.
"The agency wants to dignify working and living conditions of Europeans through creation, through culture and through rights and welfare."
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