Thora Brendstrup

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Thora Brendstrup

• Medical advisor, MD, PhD
• 3F, United Federation of Danish Workers

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Agenda

• EWHN networking
• AAA, the Danish network
• EWHN conference in Riga, Latvia, september 2006
• Transfer of risk , global workforce
• Collaboration 3F and Latvian unions in the
  construction, forestry and wood working field.

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EWHN

• European Work Hazards Network
• A group of national networks dealing with
  occupational health and safety
• Primarily national grassroot organizations and
  local unions
• EWHN has a health and safety charter

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AAA

• The Action Group of Workers and Academics
• Founded around 1980 by left wing unions and
  occupational health and safety advisors
• Started by the concern about chemical work
  environment problems Organic solvents causing
  brain damages among painters and boat builders.

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AAA

• Historically focused on national HS problems,
  making pamflets etc.
• One of the networks that founded EWHN
• Housing a EWHN conference in Denmark in 1990 and
  in 2003.

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EWHN today

• Member countries
• Norway SAFE, The Federation of workers trade
  unions within the Energy Sector
• Denmark AAA
• Scotland The Scottish Hazards movement
• England The Hazards movement
• Ireland
• Holland Netwerk
• Germany
• Italy Euronorma
• Austria PPM
• Spain CCOO

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EWHN Conference, Riga 2006Workers finding voice
in a new Europe

• To liaise with trade unions in the former Eastern
  European copuntries
• Collaboration with the Building, Forestry and
  Wood Workers Union in Latvia
• 180 participants including 50 from Latvia,
  Lituania, Estonia, Poland
• A mixture of trade unionists, professionals and
  activists

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EWHN Conference, Riga 2006

• A mixture of work place visits, short
  information meetings and longer work shops.
• Examples of work shops
• Migrant workers within the construction industry
• BBS, Behavour Based Safety (the total
  individualization of work accidents blame the
  worker)
• Occ. health and safety, a recruitment tool for
  activists
• Stress, Work pressure and Health Issues
• International Occ. HS Risk Transfer
• Health promotion in the work place
• Occ. Health Services.

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Present Occ. Health Safety problems

• Two different worlds bounce into one another
• The Danish Carpenters Union visits a big public
  construction site in Denmark.
• The union discovers 50 Polish workers
• They were massively underpayed and had very poor
  working conditions.

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A Polish-Danish trade union story

• There was a collective agreement with the German
  company they worked for
• The Danish union succeeded in getting much better
  salaries for the workers through an
  industrial-court case
• Appr. 600.000 Euros (450.000 pounds)
• The Danish union then approached the Polish
  workers to ask them to become members of the
  Danish union as long as they were working in
  Denmark.

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A Polish-Danish trade union story

• The answer from the Polish workers was
• No thank you
• How can we understand this answer?
• Let us reflect on the labour market
  situation.

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The global labour market

• Increased global competition
• Uncertain terms of employment
• The employer is disintegrating

Who engaged me? Outsourcing Franchising Transnatio
nal ownership Complex supply chain arrangement
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New technologies

• Physical inactivity in automated systems
• Nano-technology
• Biological engineering

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Collaboration in the Baltic Region

• Baltic Sea Trade Union Network on Health and
  Safety. Capacity Building Activity
• EU funded project between Nordic and Baltic trade
  unions in the construction, forestry and wood
  working field
• Partners Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland,
  Poland, Lithuania Latvia, Estonia.

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Objectives

• . Improving health and safety through worker
  participation
• The competent worker representatives are the keys
  to the improvement of the quality of working life
• To set up a network of health and safety
  researchers in the Baltics.

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ObjectivesThe researchers have to

• .provide a survey of the existing structures of
  work place representation in the companies
• Provide a survey on foreign companies operating
  in the Baltics, identifying the OHS levels in the
  companies, and how to increase the social
  dialogue
• Develope the links between researchers and trade
  unions

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Objectives OHS as a lever

• to strengthen the trade unionsability of
  recruiting new members
• to have collective agreements with employers and
  their organisations.

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Focus

• On information and training measures amongst the
  trade union officers and members, including
  training on election and promotion of competent
  safety representatives
• On a multiplier effect transposed to new
  employees.

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Project methods

• National trade unions are responsible for the
  national action plan and activities
• Project management is responsible for
  transnational seminars to report on actions and
  to exchange experience.

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Results

• The closing seminar took place just before the
  EWHN conference
• The participating Baltics could stay and
  participate in the EWHN conference as well
• No final report is made yet
• The activities in the 4 Baltic countries were
  very many. In some countries more activities than
  expected, in others less.

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Conclusions

• This EU funded project uses the same methods as
  the EWHN conferences
• A bottom up approach, to empower workers and to
  engage relevant researchers on national levels
  within health and safety
• All local activities done by local trade unions,
  very few foreign experts!