Advisory committee on safety and health at work

FOI administration manager John B. Scicluna attended the fifth meeting of the Advisory Committee on Safety and Health at Work (ACSH), held in Luxembourg at the end of last month.

This was preceded by full-day meetings of the three interest groups, employers, workers and governments. Malta was also represented by Salvu Sammut (GWU) for the workers and Dr Mark Gauci for Government.

The advisory committee had a long agenda to deal with. Besides the usual administrative items, the committee's discussions included the council's draft directive on the reports on the practical implementation of OSH directives on health and safety at work; a new mandate on chemical substances; adopted the mandates and agreed on the creation of working parties for assessment and development of user guides, Community strategy 2007-2012, and training; the Commission on the work in hand, statistics on health and safety at work, and the activities of the Senior Labour Inspectors Committee; the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work based in Bilbao and the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions based in Dublin; and the reports from the chairmen of the bureau and the chemical substances, noise, vibration, work at height, electromagnetic fields, and the hospital sector working parties.