27/10/2008
In response to requests by five French central labour bodies *, two key players in French standards development, AFNOR and UNM**, are staging a trade union training day on machinery standards development on 5 November in Paris for selected trade union reps from different machinery-using sectors. The idea is to improve work accident prevention through standards.

The main focus will be on setting up new channels of communication to develop the feedback of information on machine safety from workplaces to the Ministry of Labour and the two standards bodies, but also to see that French unions are taking on board guidance from the market surveillance and labour inspection authorities.

This two-way communication is vital to see that official action – be it by the standards, market surveillance or labour inspection authorities – is informed by workers’ knowledge.

The programme for the training day will include the presentation of a groundbreaking scheme in France soon to be launched in Normandy to collect data on telescopic lift trucks or “telehandlers”. The scheme will use information on their experiences fed back by operators to reconstitute the work they actually perform.

The project will be run by a committee which is hoping to bring all French trade unions together at the local level. A working group will also be set up, made up of workers from local firms, a trade union coordinator - Michel Blondel - and an expert-facilitator, Fabio Strambi, the Italian occupational health doctor who devised the “Feedback” method used.

The machines that the Normandy scheme will focus on have already been looked at by Pierre Picart of the French labour ministry in a survey that identified various design failings. The survey’s findings are due to be sent to CEN, the European Committee for Standardization.

The Normandy project will be the first “field” scheme run by the French inter-union steering committee on prevention through standards. The idea of the committee was floated in Toulouse in September 2007 at a seminar organized by the ETUI. Gilles Seitz, the French trade unions’ representative on the European Advisory Committee for Safety and Health at Work, and Jean-Louis Machut, technical coordinator, were moving forces behind it.

But it could not have got off the ground without the full collaboration of Pascal Etienne, Director of the safety of work equipment bureau at the Ministry of Labour, Jean Loup Commo of AFNOR and Christophe Tissier of UNM.

Hopefully, this new French steering committee will give an impetus to similar committees being set up in the other European countries.

Gilles Seitz opening the first interconfederal meeting on machinery standardization

* CFDT, CGT, CFTC, FO and CGC
** French Standards Association (AFNOR) and Mechanical Engineering Standardization Office (UNM)