Occupational health and safety & working conditions

23% of European workers believe that their safety or their health is at risk because of their work – a figure which shows that working conditions in Europe are not improving. And even though manufacturing employment across Europe is shrinking and losing ground to service jobs, exposure to traditional physical hazards - noise, dangerous goods, heavy lifting, etc. – has not gone away. In this section we monitor latest news and highlight our research activities on working conditions and occupational health and safety.

Pierre Bérastégui

Exposure to psychosocial risk factors in the gig economy

The ‘gig economy’ refers to a market system in which companies or individual requesters hire workers to perform short assignments. These... Find out more

Laurent Vogel, Mehmet Koksal

Occupational health in the courts

With 180 000 work-related deaths every year in the European Union and more than 2.5 million worldwide, occupational health is a crucial... Find out more

Christelle Casse, Marianne De Troyer

Gender, working conditions and health

In Europe, despite equal treatment laws that mainly concern wages and non-discrimination between individuals, the gendered division of... Find out more

Paula Franklin

Our failure to prevent known risks

Hazards from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, should be addressed in line with the EU Biological Agents Directive and by means of... Find out more

Yves Roquelaure

Musculoskeletal disorders and psychosocial factors at work

This report presents the current state of scientific knowledge on the ways in which psychosocial factors influence musculoskelatal disorders... Find out more

February 24, 2021

Trade union demands on the revision of the Carcinogens Directive at the EU Parliament

Cancer is the leading cause of work-related deaths, counting for over 100,000 deaths each year in the European Union alone. Workers are... Find out more

February 18, 2021

Gig workers: guinea pigs of the new world of work

Most discussion of gig workers has focused on their material insecurity. More attention also needs to be paid to what goes on in their heads... Find out more

February 16, 2021

Unions call for updated limit values for asbestos and lead derivatives

In its response to the first stage consultation with the social partners on the revision of the Asbestos at Work Directive 2009/148/EC and... Find out more

February 16, 2021

Building back better workplaces

With the EU strategic framework on occupational safety and health expiring, the post-pandemic version should prioritise prevention and... Find out more

February 12, 2021

Extension of the prejudice of anxiety in France

The court of appeal in Douai (France) has acknowledged that the exposure of 726 former miners from Lorraine to carcinogenic and toxic... Find out more