Title: New Aspects of European Integration: Corporate Social Responsibility, Social Dialogue and the Workin
1New Aspects of European Integration Corporate
Social Responsibility, Social Dialogue and the
Working Environment in the Baltic States An
Interdisciplinary Approach
- Seminar 3 The Working Environment
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8Health and Safety in European law
- Article 118A of the Treaty of Rome (incorporated
as Article 137 of the Amsterdam -Treaty- the
Commission with the Member States will develop
clearly defined policy on prevention of
occupational accidents and diseases. - An issue of quality of life, of efficiency and
productivity and also the prevention of
distortion of competition. Costs of accidents and
ill-health arising from work estimated between
2.8 and 3.6 of member states GDP.
9Key Directives and measures
- Key instrument Framework Directive 89/391/EEC
which contains basic provisions regarding the
organisation of health and safety at work and the
responsibilities of employers and workers.
Subsequent legislation protects workers form
risks related to exposure to chemical, physical
and biological agents at work with specific
directives on harmful substances such as
asbestos. - Directive on the organisation of working time
(93/104/EC), plus further Working conditions
measures regarding protection of pregnant women,
young people at work and the posting of workers.
10Fatalities at Work 2001-2002
11Workplace Fatal Accidents
12- Fatal and Heavy Injuries Lithuania,1997-2003
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14Fatal Accidents, Latvia 1997-2001
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16In Latvia in 2003, the highest number of
accidents at work by sector occurred in
wood-pulp, timber and cork production (16 of all
accidents), construction (10.9) and food and
beverage production (10).
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20Fatal and All reported Injuries Estonia,1997-2002
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22First Survey of Working Environment in the
Accession and Candidate Countries
- European Foundation for the Improvement of Living
and Working Conditions (2002)
23Health affected by work Q31c1 No, it does not
affect my health
24Different ways health is affectedQ31c 2-7
25Different ways health is affectedQ31c 8-12
26Different ways health is affectedQ31c 13-17
27Different ways health is affectedQ31c 18-20
28European Foundation for the Improvement of Living
and Working Conditions Survey of Working
Conditions (2002)
- Workers more in Accession States more exposed to
vibrations, noise, heat, air pollution, and, to a
lesser degree, to working in painful or tiring
positions, than in the EU - Working hours are considerably longer than in the
EU - Atypical forms of work such as night work or
shift work are more widespread.
29Working Conditions Survey
- Information/consultation less well developed in
the acceding and candidate countries than in the
EU, especially regarding organisational changes - 40 report in ACC that their work negatively
affects their health or safety (compared to 27
in existing EU states) - Estonia at 77.9, Lithuania at 76.0 and Latvia
at 78.4 score highest when it comes to
disagreeing with the statement that work does
not affect my health, compared to a candidate
country average of 69.0.
30Work Environment in the Baltic States
- Levels of reported fatigue are significant in all
three Baltic countries. Lithuanian (45) and
Estonian employees (46) report harmful fatigue
levels roughly twice as high as the EU average
(23). - Work-related skin, vision, sleep and allergy
problems, Estonia comes highest for the CEE
countries, again followed by Lithuania.
31- Reported work-related anxiety, Estonia (19.4) is
to of the score followed by Latvia (12.3) and
Lithuania (12.2), (again roughly comparable to
Bulgaria at 13.3) compared to the average
reported level of 4.5 for the Candidate
Countries as a whole. - Reported trauma (emotional distress) resulting
from workplace abuse, Baltic States register
three to nearly five times average levels (2.2)
for the Candidate Countries, with Estonia at
6.6, Lithuania at 10.5 and Latvia at 9.3 of
respondents (European Foundation, 2002).
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33Source Working Life Barometer in the Baltic
Countries (Antilla and Ylostalo, 2003)
34Source Working Life Barometer in the Baltic
Countries (Antilla and Ylostalo, 2003)
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40Findings
- In all the Baltic countries, a little under half
the wage earners would like to agree on work
safety and health issues within the workplace,
together with co-workers. - some degree of support for centralised,
national-level union agreements - workforce support for more active effort by the
trade unions in this respect.
41Findings
- Work intensity is felt to be too high by a
significant percentage of employees (33-43) - Mental stress at work is increasing among
employees (40-48) - Physical stress at work is increasing among
employees (37-40) - Three quarters of employees felt safety had not
improved - Significant inter-country and inter-sectoral
differences in of employees who felt they could
complain about working conditions
42Social dialogue and Working Environment An
empirical study
43The Lithuania Enterprise Survey(Woolfson, Beck
and Sceponavicius 2001)
- Conducted in co-operation with the State Labour
Inspectorate - National survey of over 5000 employees
- 30 enterprises of which 20 were SMEs
- Key focus on employee attitudes towards
- - OHS issues in the enterprise
- - Safety committees and/or trade unions
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56Most feared aspect of work
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59Key Findings
- While safety committees exist in all enterprises
of over 50 persons, more than three quarters of
Lithuanian employees do not have any voice in
safety and health at the workplace. - Of those enterprises which do have safety
committees no more than one third of workers know
anything about what these committees actually do.
60Key Findings
- While foreign owned firms appeared to do
significantly better on all areas of health and
safety there appeared not to be a cascading of
best practice from these companies to Lithuanian
owned enterprises. - Fear of unemployment is seen as the greatest
threat by most Lithuanian workers (47-61.8 of
those surveyed) while concerns over occupational
illness were less regarded (17.1 - 20.9).
61Key Findings
- Attitudes to risk remain wedded to the past with
workers strongly favouring extra pay for
hazardous work (61.1-91.1). This is seen as
making up for poor wages. - Modern ideas of risk assessment and controlling
risk at source need to be further developed as
well as more support for the development of
social dialogue in smaller and medium sized
enterprises.
62Key Findings
- Trade unions could play a much bigger role in
providing independent safety and health advice
but they need support. Under 20 of workers get
safety guidance from trade unions. - However, there seems to be strong underlying
support for trade unions to play a greater role
in enterprises. Half to two thirds of workers
felt that trade unions were too weak on the one
hand but a necessary protection for employees
in the workplace (50-63).
63Source Emor Work Environment Survey Estonia
(2000)
- In more than a half of the companies no working
environment representative, trustee, working
environment specialist or working environment
council operates - In 81 of companies with less than 10 employees
there is no person/council who follows or
analyzes working environment - In 38 of companies with 10-49 employees no
person - In 19 of companies with 50-149 employees no
person - Only 3 of companies with more than 150 employees
do not have corresponding specialist or council.
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66To whom employees turn with their problems
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68Source Working Environment Study Estonia (Emor,
2000)
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70IDENTIFIED RISK FACTORS IN ESTONIA
- primary sector employees' assessments physical
load (49), noise (27), vibration and
temperature (23) - in total, on average 2,12
different health endangering factors were
mentioned by every working person - industrial-'/power engineering' employees noise
(53), dust (49) and imperfect ventilation
(35) in total, on average were mentioned 3,16
factors - construction companies dust (57), noise (47)
and physical load (39) - in total, 2,96 factors
- transportation-warehousing-communication field
physical load (39), mental stress (38), noise
(37) and vibration (37) - in total 3,03
factors. - trade companies mental stress (39), temperature
(33), imperfect ventilation (18) - in total 1,9
risk factors - business- and personal service field mental
stress (42), imperfect ventilation (21), forced
position-monotonous (18) - in total 1,54 risk
factors - education, health-, culture institutions and
state and local authorities mental stress (58),
lightening, temperature, dust and forced position
problems (all 17) - in total, on average 1,96
risk factors per every respondent, who works in
that field.
71Social dialogue and health and safety in the new
member states
- Employers have focused on profitability
- Workers have prioritized employment security and
wages over health and safety. - Even where safety representatives exist - low
level of workforce awareness of their functions
and powers - No real degree of workforce involvement,
particularly in small and medium sized
establishments - Trade unions very weak in health and safety
issues and unable to meet employers on equal
terms in real dialogue
72Employee voice
- Key importance of safety auditing from below
- Workers have everyday practical knowledge of risk
- we need to capture this knowledge in the process
of risk assessment - Suppression of worker voice creates conditions
for unsafe working environment
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74The business case for safety and health Good
health and safety good business?
- An unproven and inapplicable theorem in the
context of new member states - Marginal costs of substitution (recruitment,
training and discipline costs of new workforce)
outweigh the benefits for the individual
enterprise (low costs of replacement of injured
or ill workers) - Enterprises able to externalise costs of worker
ill-health and injury to national social
insurance systems (no realistic charges for
rehabilitation services by national health
systems) - Enterprises able to externalise costs of worker
ill-health and injury to individual workers and
their families (no developed system of personal
injury litigation) - Insurance premiums not related to company record
on safety and health, and implementation of
advanced occupational health and safety
management programmes - Financial sanctions for safety and health
regulation violations are insufficiently large to
impact of enterprise profitability - Low reputational costs for business - no naming
and shaming of offenders, transparency through
social and environmental auditing (CSR), ongoing
scrutiny by civil society actors (eg trade
unions, health and safety campaign organisations,
environmental NGOs) - No criminalisation of corporate body and/or
possible custodial sentencing of individual
company officers under corporate killing
legislation
75 Barriers to improving working environment in the
new member states
- Regulatory authorities in new member states may
be subject to post-accession regulatory fatigue
and depletion of capacities - Support among new member state business and
political elites for European labour protection
regulation, especially in the area of OHS, is
limited (absence of reform fit)
76- External agencies (IMF) appear to favour
deregulation and differentiated standards of OHS - Washington-based Cato Institute
- over-regulation of conditions of employment
will diminish the comparative advantage that CEE
workers enjoy over their more highly paid western
counterparts
77- EU criticized because it rejects the
possibility of different levels of safety and
health protection of labour within the Union - EU criticized because it advocates the need to
harmonize health and safety standards
irrespective of the different needs of the member
states (Cato Institute, 2003)
78Estonian Employers Confederation (2004)
- EU labour law is in some parts overregulated and
that the minimum standards have been set too
high. - Without underestimating the necessity for the
regulation of occupational health and safety, the
Employers' Confederation regards that the
compulsory expenses of the employer related to
occupational health and safety are
disproportionately large in small businesses
compared to large businesses - The Employers' Confederation will make a
proposition to the Government for reviewing the
composition of obligations set for micro and
small businesses in relation to the work
environment with a view of maintaining only the
most essential ones and ensuring their
competitive ability.
79- EUs post-Lisbon retreat from securing employee
rights, in favour of promoting growth and
competitiveness, and a consequent downplaying of
the social dimension - Adoption by EU of many neo-liberal assumptions
about regulation and the burden it imposes on
business - European Commission programme of updating and
simplifying the acquis - Health and safety legislation subjected to a
detailed scrutiny
80- Traditional EU Directives replaced by more
efficient, flexible and proportionate instruments
(for example, framework directives, new approach
directives or softer (self-)regulatory
alternatives) - This confers rule making-powers to
stakeholders employers and trade unions - who
voluntarily agree to frameworks of rules in a
process of self-regulation eg sectoral agreements
on safety and health
81Soft law in action The Open Method of
Co-ordination (OMC)
- Open Method of Co-ordination endorsed (Lisbon
Council, 2000) as- - an important tool of EU governance in achieving
social and employment policy goals includes
health and safety at work - Notions of benchmarking and best practice -
securing a flexible and decentralised approach to
policy creation and implementation
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83Soft Law on the move
84New policy instruments
85Corporate Social Responsibility
- Appeals to companies' sense of corporate social
responsibility regarding best practices, on
such matters as - work organisation
- equal opportunities
- social inclusion
- safety and health
86Policy implications for health and safety in an
enlarged Europe
- In the CEE new member accession states many
employers do not see good health and safety
necessarily as good business - Limited interest in good practice voluntary
initiatives and corporate social responsibility
outside of larger firms
87- Scope for regulatory experimentation
(self-regulation - soft law and the OMC) very
limited at a domestic level in the new member CEE
states. - CEE new member accession states in danger of
providing a reservoir of cheap labour and an
inferior high hazard work environment.
88- Introduction of soft law and self-regulation
(corporate social responsibility, best practice
models, partnership strategies) inappropriate
in the short to medium term (5-10 years, and
possibly longer) - Emergence of regulatory regime competition and
a race to the bottom between new and older
member states a two track Europe?