NetWerk
Netherlands Network for Health and Safety
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Report of the Workshop "Working conditions in the production chain of Pasta Food"
In the sixth European Hazard Network Conference eight people have discussed the theme of the workshop.
Participants were :
Minieke Destelliver , Florist in the Netherlands.
Marianne Mackay, Florist in the Netherlands.
Rolf Satzer, Psychologist and examiner in the metal-industry in Germany
Mark Schoute, Chemical researcher on the university of Amsterdam Netherlands
John Hoven, Project manager on the university of Amsterdam Netherlands
Pam Stacey, Health and Safety reporter of the Cambridge university in England
Peter van Dinther, Teacher and adviser of Health and Safety in the Netherlands.
Nol Verhaaff, Workshop co-ordinator and Health and Safety adviser of the union in the Netherlands.
In this workshop we have discussed a model that we can use for analysing risk in several parts of a production chain. We started with a presentation of the model.
During the discussion we found out that there is a great difference between the workers at the shopfloor and academic people. The workers know what is happening at the shopfloor and the academics have to translate models and theory to the shopfloor. A long time the discussion was going on about this theme without a solution that brought us together. The reason lay in misunderstanding from both parts of the workshop.
In the second part of the workshop we discussed seven theses. The result of this discussion was a better understanding of the groups.
As a result we have six theses:
Thesis 1
Workers at the shopfloor should let themselves be supported by scientist because the scientist can work according to the abstract models that are available.
Thesis 2 Workers at the shopfloor are not able to oversee all the steps in the production chain; therefor the risks repeat themselves.
Thesis 3 The model of "Pasta-Food" is a good example to get a look on the Produktion Chain, and compare the risks.
Thesis 4 It is only possible to compare risks when you know in detail what the people at the shopfloor experience as Hazards from their work.
Thesis 5 Theory and practice are so far apart that workers at the shopfloor may not benefit from it.
Thesis 6 Risk-analyses of companies in a chain could be the basis for equal solutions of all the steps in the production chain.
When we look at the future we can see that overcoming the distance between theory and practice is a very necessary step that the network had to make. In many countries scientists don't have learned working with people in the factories Many workers don't like to work together with scientists because the don't listen to the workers and many times scientists can not explain what they mean with their models.
On the other hand many workers on the shopfloor don't understand the language that scientists need to use.
So, the most important conclusion is
To bring sceintist and workers better together so that they understand each other, they need to know the practice of each other.
Nol Verhaaff workshop co-ordinator.
12-04-1997.