The subnetwork was formed during the EWHN conference in Italy 1994, where it was a result of a fringe meeting.

In 1995 the subnetwork held its own small conference in Italy. The key questions for this first subnetwork conference were workers representation in organizing OHS, multidisciplinarity and team work in OHS, ethics and quality control studies of OHS.

Many European countries are changing their legislation on OHS these years, so there is a great need to discuss workers' influence on these changes.

The results from the subnetwork conference were published in the subnetwork newsletter.

This workshop was a continuation of the subnetwork discussions, focusing on the use of health screening as part of OHS.

21 persons from 8 different countries applied for the workshop. But 3 Italians did not come, because they had understood that there would be no translation in the workshop.

After a general discussion on differences in national practices concerning health screening, three groups were formed to discuss the following items:

1. Use of sickness absence control

2. Pre employment screening

3. Workers participation in OHS and in screening

The three groups ended up with the following conclusions:

There seem to be a general and rising tendency in Europe for employers to want to control the amount of sickness absence.

Some countries allow employers to contact sick employees directly. And medical personnel is used to control the causes of disease. The records some times go directly to the personnel department of the company. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.

Sickness absence should be seen not only as caused by specific health problems, but as a sign of bad working conditions. These bad working conditions can be either physical or organizational.

So concern about sickness absence should include concern about working environment and work organization. This applies especially for repeated, short term absence periods.

The efforts to look into the causes of a high absence rate should be made in cooperation with the workers' representative. This should be part of a plan to evaluate working conditions and organization.

We warn against abuse of the expression: "Sickness absence counseling", which in fact in reality often is pure control.

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO AVOID ABUSE OF SICKNESS ABSCENSE CONTROL.

We suggest that more energy instead is put on early rehabilitation plans within the countries.

The OHS can cooperate on the rehabilitation plans in coordination with the workers' representative and as part of the job of looking into the working environment.

This term is used in several different ways in the different European countries. It is important to find out, whether you talk about pre-assignment or pre-contract screening.

First of all it is important, that the team carrying out the screening has real professional independency from the employer.

The screening methods used should be valid according to the WHO principles (which leave the doctors with only a handful of valid methods!)

The screening can have some positive functions:

1. To provide "baseline health status" as part of ongoing health surveillance.

2. To reduce special risks to individuals (who are especially susceptible).

3. As part of rehabilitation after accident/sickness.

The purpose of the screening should be made very clear

Some kind of pre-employment screening, maybe the most important ones take place in peoples' head, when they look for a job: the dirty jobs always have an overrepresentation of healthy workers, because the disabled ones never apply for these jobs.

Workers must have access to the results of the screening from the medical personnel, who is carrying out the screening.

Participation of workers in management of the OHS must be discussed as a possibility. Also the content of workers' participation in the management must be discussed.

TRAINING of the workers' representatives for these tasks is essential.

One level of participation is the regulations by law. There is quite a lot of literature on this.

Another level is reality: How is workers' participation carried out in reality and how do you measure the effect?

Workers' participation in OHS could mean:

-to decide whom to employ in the OHS

- that annual reports on OHS activities are sent both to the employer and to workers' rep.

The workshop decided to send out a questionnaire through the subnetwork to country representatives to find out some more about this reality.

A continuation of the subnetwork activities is needed.

The hottest subject in the European discussion right now is:

SICKNESS ABSENCE CONTROL

The workshop decided to plan a new subnetwork meeting in

LINZ, AUSTRIA, 13-15 February 1998

It was also decided to continue publishing the subnetwork Newsletter.

Next issue of the subnetwork newsletter will contain minutes from this EWHN Amsterdam Conference, and different comments on the workshop issues from the individual subnetwork members. Examples could be short comments of the different national understanding of the terms:

Thora Brendstrup

Workshop coordinator