ILO and European Commission to bolster cooperation on safety and health at work

BRUSSELS – The International Labour Organisation (ILO) and European Commission (EC) have agreed to strengthen ties in the area of occupational safety and health at a conference on working conditions in Brussels on 28 April, 2014.

ILO Director-General Guy Ryder, represented by Sandra Polaski, Deputy Director-General, and László Andor, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, acknowledged that the longstanding cooperation of the two organizations is key to addressing Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) challenges consistently at the global level.

The two reaffirmed their mutual interest in supporting each other's activities, particularly in promoting safety and health of workplaces in emerging countries, implementing the Decent Work Agenda and in improving working conditions in global supply chains.

Both organizations share a preventative approach to counter occupational and work-related diseases, in particular by tackling new and emerging physical and mental health risks related to new technologies and new work organization patterns. They pledged to improve cooperation in prevention efforts and on collecting data for occupational and work-related diseases.

Polaski and Andor highlighted the need to bolster the role of national inspection and enforcement institutions by providing technical assistance and capacity building. As part of the on-going efforts to improve working conditions, they also recognized the vital role already being played by labour inspectorates in prevention, advice and enforcement and acknowledged the complementary role that private compliance initiatives could play.

The culture of tripartite governance in the field of OSH needs to be reinforced at all levels. Both bodies agreed to further promote the active participation of governments, employers' and workers' organizations in the development of OSH national and trans-national policies and programmes – another challenge ahead that will be jointly tackled, Polaski and Andor stated.

Reference: ILO