On Wednesday 17 May, we had a visit from William Cockburn, Interim Executive Director at EU-OSHA. With him was his colleague Elke Schneider, senior expert in work environment issues. Both have worked for a long time within the organisation and are stationed in Bilbao, Spain.
William talked about the agency’s work and challenges, and the practical tools they use. He also informed about EU-OSHA’s e-guides and risk assessment tools and about OSHwiki, an online encyclopedia containing articles on occupational health and safety issues.
We presented some of our projects
From our agency’s side, we informed about some of our systematic literature reviews, guidelines, reports and that we translate some of our products into English. The guests also received a presentation about the teaching material we produced for school children ages 13-16 about the work environment and farmers’ psychosocial work environment and health, which is an international project. Mr Cockburn and Mrs Schneider were also interested in our guidelines for handling social health risks at work – victimization and bullying.
During the meeting, advice and suggestions on valuable networks and contacts were exchanged for the benefit of our various projects.
The Swedish National Network participated via link
The Swedish National Network for EU-OSHA participated via link when Mr Cockburn explained the importance of us working with our “tripartite structure”, that both EU-OSHA and the member states are based on in the work environment area.
– This day confirmed that Sweden is a leader when it comes to understanding and practical health in working life. You also have a functioning collaboration between the social partners. We have heard of examples today that will help us in our work, says William Cockburn.
During one of our planning days in Saltsjöbaden, we invited Tim Tregenza, Senior Network Manager at EU-OSHA as a lecturer. We got to hear his view on “The role of Focal Points” and information about what the organisation and the network are working on.