Uea seminar on accident reduction  campaigns in the furniture industry

The Uea closed 2007 with a seminar on accident reduction campaigns in the furniture industry

The furniture and wood working industries are among the most accident prone sectors in the Eu industry according the Eurostat statistics.

The final step in a project to disseminate knowledge about “best practises” to reduce accidents in the workplace in the furniture sector has been a seminar in Porto.

Under the presidency of Rodrigo Rodriguez, president of Uea social commission and chairman of the Eu Furniture social dialogue committee, more than 60 delegates from 28 different nationalities from employers and workers representative organizations in the furniture industry in Eu, met to listen to the examples chosen and to discuss possible actions. The European Commission was represented by Annelli Sillanpaa, head of sector and my Michaela Seifert of Osha, the European agency for health and safety in the workplace based in Bilbao.

A brochure with the best practises and with accident statistics was published and distributed in

English, French and German. In the discussion, the Uea proposed to extend the project by assuring the continuation of the dissemination of the examples by electronically. An extension to the project towards the Eu candidate states was also proposed as well as the extension of the best practises to include the working environment and the exposure to such things as formaldehyde emissions etc.

The project was executed in co-operation with the Efbww, the European organization representing the workers in the furniture industry. Also Italy and Germany participated in the project by presenting best practises through their Efic organization. The project was financially supported by the European Commission.