Workplace health initiatives including planned Europe-wide rules to reduce the toll of occupational cancer are to stay shelved, latest documentation from the European Commission has confirmed. The TUC, berating the Commission’s decision only to “review” the occupational health and safety situation, said exposures to workplace carcinogens are widespread and lead to “at least” 15,000 occupational cancer deaths each year in the UK.

“Because of the high level of exposure there is a clear need for new regulation on carcinogens,” noted TUC head of safety Hugh Robertson. But he said the European Commission’s work programme, published on 27 October, states only that a “review of the existing occupational health and safety legislation, including on carcinogens and mutagens, will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of an EU framework for protecting workers.”

Robertson, writing in the TUC’s Stronger Unions blog, notes:

“The nearest we get to anything concrete on health and safety is a statement that they will conclude the complex preparatory work already under way to protect Europeans from the dangers of endocrine disruptors and follow up on it.”

Instead of addressing the need for new regulations, the European Commission says it will instead check that existing rules are “workable and will be enforced”.

According to TUC’s Hugh Robertson, “there is a real concern that given the current political situation in Europe and review of current regulation will simply be an excuse to deregulate or, in European-speak, ‘simplify’. It is also nothing new as the review of health and safety regulation is something that is already on-going. So in a nutshell what we have is an entire work programme that does not offer a single new proposal on the area of workplace health.

Instead it confirms the dropping of some areas and simply says that they will be continuing what they are already doing. Yet, without a hint of irony, they call their work programme ‘No time for business as usual’.”

Source: TUC Risks