제 목 : Unions Complain About Application of Law
일 자 : 1997년 12월
제공처 : Safety & health(EU UPDATE)
Unions Complain About Application of Law
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The Trade Union Training Bureau, a union lobby group, has asked the
European Commission to make sure that member states comply with
European Union health and safety legislation.
TUTB representative Marc Sapir says that making sure member states
meet the legal requirements is not the same as ensuring the laws are
carried out in a practical way.
"Some member states are not putting resources into getting the
laws working,' says Sapir. In order to achieve this, he says the commis-
sion should publicly acknowledge the importance of practical applica-
tion of the law and open more channels of communication between it-
self and member states to discuss the issue. A committee established for
this purpose by the Maastricht Treaty in the late l980s has never met, he
says.
Barbara Nolan from the European Commission's Health and
Safety Unit says that under the terms of the Maastricht Treaty, responsi-
bility for getting laws working is clearly defined as the responsibility
of member states. In any case, the commission has increasingly fewer
resources to check that member states have taken on the laws, she says.
On the member-state level, owen Tudor from Britain's Trade
Union Congress says at would be diffcult to present a case to the
European Court clarming that EU health and safety laws were not be-
ing properly carried out in Britain's workplaces.
However, he believes that longterm staffing and funding cuts within
the government are making it difficult for labor inspectors and other
sections of the government's health and safety authorities to enforce
the law.
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