European organisations and multinationals join forces

06 November 2008

Nine pan-European and multinational organisations have signed up to be part of the first wave of official partners of the Healthy Workplaces campaign. Organised by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA), the campaign focuses on the evaluation of health and safety risks and aims at reducing work-related accidents and illnesses.

Among the participating organisations are European employers' and workers' federations, multinational companies from various industry sectors, research platforms and NGOs. By signing up as official partners, these organisations get substantially involved in the campaign and promote risk assessment as the first essential step for good workplace safety and health management.

"We are very proud that so many renowned organisations decided to help us raise awareness on this important topic", Jukka Takala, Director of EU-OSHA said. "Risk assessment is the key to preventing accidents and ill health at work. It is a legal obligation throughout Europe, but there are still companies that do not assess their risks regularly. This is reflected in figures of accidents and diseases at work which show that improvements are still needed, especially in SMEs. Partnerships with these nine organisations allow us to further increase the impact of our Healthy Workplaces campaign, already now one of the world's largest information campaigns on occupational safety and health. And this is only the start since we are in touch with many more organisations that will join soon."

In practical terms, the official partners promote the Healthy Workplaces campaign through their information channels, disseminate campaign material to their networks and organise their own activities such as conferences, workshops, training sessions, media events and poster competitions. In return, EU-OSHA rewards them with extensive promotion via its website and newsletter to more than 38,000 subscribers. In addition, every participant receives a Partner Certificate and is acknowledged when the Agency presents and promotes the campaign to stakeholders at EU level and to the media.