Dangerous substances – Handle with care
by Annie Rice
Senior Specialist, Occupational Safety and Health
ILO-Budapest joins with Slovenia in EU Week for Safety and Health at Work
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| Organizers and main speakers at the conference. From left: Annie Rice, ILO SRO-Budapest; Anne Wilson, UK Health and Safety Executive; Natasa Belopavlovic, State secretary, Slovenian Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs; Marta Urrutia, European Agency for Safety and Health at Work; Tatjana Petricek, State undersecretary, MoLFSA of Slovenia. |
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The ILO joined forces with the Slovenian Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs to organize an international conference entitled “Dangerous substances – Handle with care” on 24 October 2003. The conference was the closing event of a week’s activities in the framework of the EU Week for Safety and Health at Work. It attracted about 70 people from the ministry, employers, workers and trade unions, as well as safety professionals and occupational physicians. Several international guests also attended – from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as speakers from the UK, Spain and Hungary.
The EU Week is an annual information campaign held in October, aimed at making Europe a safe and healthy place to work. Coordinated by the Bilbao-based European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, it has become the largest workplace safety and health event in Europe, run in all 15 EU member states, the candidate countries and beyond. The theme for 2003 was ways to reduce the risk of working with dangerous substances.
This was the second year that Slovenia participated in the EU Week, with activities prepared by the ministry and the National Network for Cooperation with the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, bringing together representatives of the social partners and key institutions in the field. (An overview of the activities can be found on the National Network’s website.
The activities culminated in the conference, which focused on good practices in handling dangerous substances. Annie Rice, on behalf of the ILO, gave a presentation on ILO tools providing practical guidance for handling hazardous substances safely. An interesting presentation was also given by Anne Wilson of the UK’s Health and Safety Executive on “control banding” – a practical and simple method for imposing good practices while maintaining employer compliance with comprehensive legislation.
The conference, and the safety week, ended with a ceremony to present the Good Practice Awards – bestowed in Slovenia for the first time to enterprises which had implemented innovative projects to substantially improve safety and health in their workplaces.
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| ILO Film |
| Fully fit at work |
Film about the advantages of employing persons with disabilities. As this ILO film (Fully Fit at Work) shows, not only may people with disabilities be more productive, they may actually be more skilled in some jobs than non-disabled people. Produced for the ILO by the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing.
Watch the film online in Polish with English subtitles. Duration: 21 min 11 sec
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Press release in English and
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