제 목 : British Government Scraps Outdated Regulations
일 자 : 1996년 02월
제공처 : Safety & Health
In 1994, the British government's Health and Safety Executive
established a commission to investigate how European Union states
implement EU health and safety directives. The commission consists of
employers, unions and the government. Its first report found no support
for the argument that health and safety rules are a burden on business.
Instead, the commission found that, in general, business found the laws
sensible.
The commission also found that some regulations were outdated or
could be scrapped without affecting health and safety.
"{The commission}set out a five-year program to look at individual
pieces of legislation," Owen Tudor of the Trade Union Council says. "The
TUC is happy to see some of these old laws go. Quite often they are very
specific laws that have now been superseded by general pieces of
legislation that cover industry as a whole."
Tudor doesn't believe that deregulation changes to this point would
affect the country's compliance with EU health and safety laws, with the
exception of possible changes to laws that cover computer operators. "We
are particularly concerned that the requirement for eyesight tests will
be stopped," he says. "The government claims there is no scientific
basis for this test."
The TUC is also unhappy with the way the directive was adopted into
British law, Tudor says, because it doesn't cover all users of computer
equipment. He says European Commissioner Padraig Flynn, who is
responsible for EU health and safety, had publicly stated that there
would be no weakening of the directive, rather it should be
strengthened.□
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