Summary/citation: The employer shall take all the necessary measures to ensure safety and protect the physical and mental health of workers. These measures shall include:
-Actions to prevent occupational hazards;
-Provision of information and training;
-Implementation of specific OSH system and means.
The employer shall ensure the adaptation of these measures to the workplace and take into account the changes of circumstances to achieve improvements in the prevailing situation.
Nine OSH principles underpinning the application of the above measures are set out in the legislation:
1. Avoid risks;
2. Assess the risks that cannot be avoided;
3. Combat risks at source;
4. Adapt the work to the persons, especially in the design of workstations and the choice of work equipment; to methods of work and production, particularly in order to limit the repetitive work and clocked work and reduce the impact of these on health.
5. Take into account the state of technical development;
6. Replace the dangerous by not dangerous or less dangerous;
7. Create a prevention plan by integrating coherently technology, organization of work, working conditions, social relationships, environmental factors, including risk of bullying and sexual harassment.
8. Take collective protection measures giving them priority over individual measures.
9. Give appropriate instructions to workers.
The employer shall make all necessary arrangements for avoiding bullying at work.
Remarks / comments: In 2009, two Court of Cassation rulings recognized that moral harassment could occur even without malicious intent on the part of the perpetrator and considered that certain management methods constituted moral harassment when they consisted of repeated actions against an employee (Cass. Soc 10 November 2009).
The employer implements and writes in a “single document” the results of the risks assessment for health and safety at work (art. R4121-1 of the Labor Code).
The updating of the single document is conducted at least every years, when a major development decision alters health and safety conditions or working conditions in the company, and when additional information is received concerning the assessment of a risk in a work unit (art. R 4121-2 of the Labor Code).
According to the French Court of Cassation, the employer is under a strict obligation to ensure health and safety at work. The strict obligation was introduced into social law by the Asbestos rulings on 28 February 2002. Failure to fulfill this obligation is considered an inexcusable fault and facilitates its recognition, while opening up an additional remedy in social security law when the employer was, or should have been, aware of the danger to which the worker was exposed and did not take the necessary steps to protect him/her. This paved the way for full compensation of the damages suffered by the victim. The Court of Cassation considered that the strict nature of the obligation to ensure safety at work implied that the occupational risk should never have occurred. In light of the framework-directive 89/391/EEC dated 12 June 1989, the Court of Cassation also ruled on 28 February 2006 that employers are not only under a strict obligation to ensure and protect the health of workers in the workplace, but are also liable for guaranteeing its effectiveness.
• Ordonnance n° 2007-329 du 12 mars 2007 relative au Code du travail (partie législative). (Art. L4121-1, Art. L4121-2, Art. L1152-4)
