Health and safety at work
The resolution, adopted by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on 1 February 2022, was given the green light by the European Parliament at its plenary session on 10 March. This extremely comprehensive report formulates several requests for legislative acts.
For example, it calls on the Commission to update the directive on exposure to carcinogens, mutagens or reprotoxic substances “on a continual basis and in an ambitious timeframe”, “by setting up occupational exposure limit values for at least 25 additional priority substances in the directive without delay, following the presentation of the action plan and by end of 2022”.
MEPs want the Commission to supplement the European Schedule of Occupational Diseases and to transform this into a directive, so that it will include work-related musculoskeletal disorders and work-related mental-health disorders, in particular depression, burnout, anxiety and stress, all asbestos-related diseases and skin cancers and rheumatic and chronic inflammation. MEPs are also calling on the Commission to put forward a legislative framework of minimum requirements applicable to teleworking, and a directive laying down minimum standards and conditions to ensure that all workers are properly able to exercise their right to disconnect.
MEPs also invite the Commission to submit a legislative initiative setting out responsibilities and obligations linked to occupational health and safety, with regard to artificial intelligence systems and new working methods. MEPs assert that “the emergence of new forms of monitoring and management of workers based on the collection of large amounts of real-time data […] can lead to legal, regulatory and ethical questions”. They call, in particular, for “the introduction of safeguards against the adverse impacts of algorithmic management on the health and safety of workers”, while at the same time indicating that these “algorithms deployed in the areas of work” must “be transparent, non-discriminatory and ethical”.
Moreover, “algorithmic decisions must be accountable, contestable and, where relevant, reversible, and consequently must be subject to human oversight”. Something else worthy of note in the report is a call for the Commission to thoroughly and urgently assess the new and emerging risks of climate change on occupational health and safety, in order to better protect workers from exposure to higher temperatures, natural UV radiation and other related safety hazards.
(Article published in IR Note 182 of 23 March 2022)
