Suchergebnisse

International audience ; Companies face two challenges in the field of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS). They must first ensure that they meet the legal obligations that apply to them. This requires that they first clearly identify what these obligations are (with the help of management compliance tools of varying degrees of complexity). However, at the same time, employers and other stakeholders in the prevention of occupational risk (OHS professionals, human resources managers, etc.) must take precautions against the potential risk of both civil and criminal legal action. In order to limit these risks, it is essential to have a highly specialized knowledge of judicial precedent. While the courtroom culture of Anglo-Saxon law emphasizes the importance of case law (judicial decisions create and modify the structure of the law as it is applied), this is not so true in countries where the legal culture places greater emphasis on the role of the legislature (e.g. France). Although employers and managers of large companies are becoming more aware of their legal obligations, they remain less alert to the identification and understanding of judicial precedent in the field of OHS. This situation is unfortunate as a good understanding of case law in the area of legal liability is useful for the implementation of measures to evaluate relevant compliance activities. Judicial precedent can shed particularly welcome light on the interpretation of certain statutory provisions or the understanding of complex legal mechanisms (e.g. the conditions for a valid delegation of authority). This paper uses the current situation in France to demonstrate the point. It is organized into two parts. The first part offers an overview of the legal context that French companies operate in, in the area of OHS. The second part aims to demonstrate the extent to which the study of case law contributes to a better understanding, and hence management, of legislative compliance and legal liability risk.

International audience ; Companies face two challenges in the field of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS). They must first ensure that they meet the legal obligations that apply to them. This requires that they first clearly identify what these obligations are (with the help of management compliance tools of varying degrees of complexity). However, at the same time, employers and other stakeholders in the prevention of occupational risk (OHS professionals, human resources managers, etc.) must take precautions against the potential risk of both civil and criminal legal action. In order to limit these risks, it is essential to have a highly specialized knowledge of judicial precedent. While the courtroom culture of Anglo-Saxon law emphasizes the importance of case law (judicial decisions create and modify the structure of the law as it is applied), this is not so true in countries where the legal culture places greater emphasis on the role of the legislature (e.g. France). Although employers and managers of large companies are becoming more aware of their legal obligations, they remain less alert to the identification and understanding of judicial precedent in the field of OHS. This situation is unfortunate as a good understanding of case law in the area of legal liability is useful for the implementation of measures to evaluate relevant compliance activities. Judicial precedent can shed particularly welcome light on the interpretation of certain statutory provisions or the understanding of complex legal mechanisms (e.g. the conditions for a valid delegation of authority). This paper uses the current situation in France to demonstrate the point. It is organized into two parts. The first part offers an overview of the legal context that French companies operate in, in the area of OHS. The second part aims to demonstrate the extent to which the study of case law contributes to a better understanding, and hence management, of legislative compliance and legal liability risk.

Safety impacts on the lives of every person, every day, at home, travelling to work, at work and in recreation. Unfortunately, at times when safety breaks down people get injured and sometimes are killed. Work is an all too common place where these break downs occur. Every year in Australia, hundreds of people die at work and many more are permanently disabled; their lives and the lives of those around them will never be the same again. There have been many approaches by state and federal governments, unions and organisations to try and reduce this avoidable financial and moral cost to both society and workers alike. There are acts and regulations in every state with strict rules and harsh penalties for non-compliance. There are thousands of pages of associated codes of practice, guidelines and standards that support these legal requirements. Unions have worked hard for many years to push occupational health and safety through governments and organisations. Organisations have implemented many procedures, policies and standards themselves recognising the huge financial and legal exposure of poor safety. There has been many days of safety training both internally and externally provided to thousands of employees, which continues every day. Safety leadership has been driven through many large organisations to ensure management and employees alike understand the importance and reason for safety. Technology has played an important part contributing to drastic improvements in both mobile and fixed equipment to minimise the risk of an injury in such higher risk situations. In more recent times, concepts like behaviour-based safety and positive performance indicators have been introduced to improve safety. Indeed, all of these approaches have reduced the risk of injury in the workplace significantly. Nevertheless, hundreds of injuries and serious incidents occur every day, many of which could have been avoided. Hence, more needs to be done and the vision of an injury free workplace should never be forgotten. This study examines safety management and current practices to see if there is a better way than current approaches and how safety can be improved further from an overall strategic approach. It investigates whether another field, knowledge management, can be used to improve safety management performance. To do this, firstly an initial conceptual model was developed after an exploratory analysis and literature review. A comprehensive longitudinal study was then carried out in a large national Australian organisation to test the research question as to whether the practical application of knowledge management principles to safety can improve safety performance. The study involved methodical triangulation to combine a range of qualitative and quantitative data. The study, which ran over three years, positively supported the research question that knowledge management can be used to improve safety performance. This was achieved through applying sixteen practical safety applications using knowledge management principles. From this finding an overall framework and approach was developed which can be used by other organisations to improve their safety performance even further towards best practice. It is hoped that through this outcome that many other serious injuries and incidents are prevented, creating a better society and saving the lives and livelihoods of many more workers.

The attention paid to the use of pesticides has increased notably in recent years as demonstrated by the issue of laws and regulations requiring their safe and environmentally-conscious use (e.g. Directive 2009/128/EC and Regulation (EC) no. 1272/2008). Despite the benefits that can be achieved by pursuing the targets of stricter legislative framework, the difficulties for farmers in complying with it are remarkable, especially for small-sized companies. In fact, in contrast to other occupational health and safety (OHS) contexts, in the case of pesticides even a preliminary analysis on the relationship between pesticide use and the consequent exposure risks for the workers is a complex task. In order to reduce the above-mentioned gap, the present study is focused on the development of an easy-to-use tool for carrying out occupational risk assessment of agricultural activities related to the use of pesticides. The procedure was developed by starting from the Agricultural Health Study (AHS) approach and its improvements, and continuing to the thorough development of a tool for preliminary risk assessment, providing a simplified model for its practical application by farmers. A case study concerning olive cultivation was used for its first verification. The results achieved should be considered as an initial step for the promotion of safer practices when using pesticides, providing a consistent base for their further validation.

The attention paid to the use of pesticides has increased notably in recent years as demonstrated by the issue of laws and regulations requiring their safe and environmentally-conscious use (e.g. Directive 2009/128/EC and Regulation (EC) no. 1272/2008). Despite the benefits that can be achieved by pursuing the targets of stricter legislative framework, the difficulties for farmers in complying with it are remarkable, especially for small-sized companies. In fact, in contrast to other occupational health and safety (OHS) contexts, in the case of pesticides even a preliminary analysis on the relationship between pesticide use and the consequent exposure risks for the workers is a complex task. In order to reduce the above-mentioned gap, the present study is focused on the development of an easy-to-use tool for carrying out occupational risk assessment of agricultural activities related to the use of pesticides. The procedure was developed by starting from the Agricultural Health Study (AHS) approach and its improvements, and continuing to the thorough development of a tool for preliminary risk assessment, providing a simplified model for its practical application by farmers. A case study concerning olive cultivation was used for its first verification. The results achieved should be considered as an initial step for the promotion of safer practices when using pesticides, providing a consistent base for their further validation.

The attention paid to the use of pesticides has increased notably in recent years as demonstrated by the issue of laws and regulations requiring their safe and environmentally-conscious use (e.g. Directive 2009/128/EC and Regulation (EC) no. 1272/2008). Despite the benefits that can be achieved by pursuing the targets of stricter legislative framework, the difficulties for farmers in complying with it are remarkable, especially for small-sized companies. In fact, in contrast to other occupational health and safety (OHS) contexts, in the case of pesticides even a preliminary analysis on the relationship between pesticide use and the consequent exposure risks for the workers is a complex task. In order to reduce the above-mentioned gap, the present study is focused on the development of an easy-to-use tool for carrying out occupational risk assessment of agricultural activities related to the use of pesticides. The procedure was developed by starting from the Agricultural Health Study (AHS) approach and its improvements, and continuing to the thorough development of a tool for preliminary risk assessment, providing a simplified model for its practical application by farmers. A case study concerning olive cultivation was used for its first verification. The results achieved should be considered as an initial step for the promotion of safer practices when using pesticides, providing a consistent base for their further validation.

The attention paid to the use of pesticides has increased notably in recent years as demonstrated by the issue of laws and regulations requiring their safe and environmentally-conscious use (e.g. Directive 2009/128/EC and Regulation (EC) no. 1272/2008). Despite the benefits that can be achieved by pursuing the targets of stricter legislative framework, the difficulties for farmers in complying with it are remarkable, especially for small-sized companies. In fact, in contrast to other occupational health and safety (OHS) contexts, in the case of pesticides even a preliminary analysis on the relationship between pesticide use and the consequent exposure risks for the workers is a complex task. In order to reduce the above-mentioned gap, the present study is focused on the development of an easy-to-use tool for carrying out occupational risk assessment of agricultural activities related to the use of pesticides. The procedure was developed by starting from the Agricultural Health Study (AHS) approach and its improvements, and continuing to the thorough development of a tool for preliminary risk assessment, providing a simplified model for its practical application by farmers. A case study concerning olive cultivation was used for its first verification. The results achieved should be considered as an initial step for the promotion of safer practices when using pesticides, providing a consistent base for their further validation.

Includes bibliographical references. ; This study is specifically concerned with the effect of occupational health and safety (hereafter OHS) law in Angola and the protection it offers to employees in the oil and gas industry. The current Angolan OHS legislation continues to be characterised by the pre-independence legal system inherited from the colonial era, which creates a crisis of legitimacy and justice. This crisis may be resolved through the ratification of the International Labour Organisation OHS conventions. This dissertation examines workplace health and safety in Angola from a legal perspective in detail, and explores international instruments that are used to protect employees from unhealthy and unsafe conditions. An analysis of the relevant source materials reveals a disjunction between the international standards and the laws as implemented in Angola. It is a fact that the law is expected to offer as far as is possible reasonable health and safety protection to employees. Evidence demonstrates, however, that these laws have largely failed to meet expectations. The problem is not only the fragmentation and inconsistency of the OHS laws, but also that the framework is in need of revision and a dedicated plan to resolve the gaps in the existing legislation. The study thus explores the discontinuities and deficiencies of the regulatory framework as well as of the enforcement mechanisms. Similarly, it proposes an extensive shift of emphasis away from the current legal debate to focus on the relevant issues that will offer substantive protection to the health and safety of employees, as well as justice in law reform. Various steps need to be taken to ratify the OHS conventions in order to improve the deficient framework of OHS legislation in Angola.

Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) is a complex area which interacts widely with a broader spectrum of business interests and concerns. To date OHS has been confined to the periphery of Human Resource Management (HRM), where its role, influence and importance have been overlooked. This text sets out to reposition OHS in HRM and business agendas. This book unravels the complex range of factors affecting OHS policy, practice and outcomes. These factors are then placed into context within the international airline, call centre and nuclear power industries. The author presents a wide range of pr

A significant part of literature has shown that the adoption of Sustainability and Health-Safety management systems from organizations bears some substantial benefits since such systems (i) create a suitable frame for the sustainable development, implementation and review of the plans and/or processes, necessary to manage occupational health-safety (OHS) in their workplaces and (ii) imply innovative thinking and practices in fields of economics, policy-making, legislation, health and education. To this context, the paper targets at analysing current sustainability and OHSMSs in order to make these issues more comprehend, clear and functional for scholars and practitioners. Therefore, a literature survey has been conducted to map the territory by focusing on two interrelated tasks. The first one includes the presentation of the main International Management Systems (IMS) with focus on Sustainability and OHS (S_OHSMS) topics and the second task depicts a statistical analysis of the literature-review findings (for the years 2006&ndash ; 2017). In particular, the main purposes of the literature research were: (i) the description of key points of OHSMS and sustainability standards, (ii) the comparative analysis of their characteristics, taking into account several settled evaluation-criteria and (iii) the statistical analysis of the survey&rsquo ; s findings, while our study&rsquo ; s primary aim is the reinforcement of OHMSs&rsquo ; application in any organization. The results evince, that the field of industry (with 28%) and also of the constructions (with 16%), concentrate the highest percentage of OHSMS use. In general, there were only few publications including OHSMSs (referred to various occupational fields) available in the scientific literature (during 2006&ndash ; 2017) but on the other hand, there was a gradually increasing scientific interest for these standards (especially during 2009&ndash ; 2012).