France: social partners strike national agreement making prevention the cornerstone of occupational health

This week, trade union and employer organisations in France struck an interprofessional agreement on occupational health. The negotiators from all the employer bodies issued a favourable opinion on the text, while CGT union rejected the deal. Under the text, efforts to ensure occupational health are focused on a preventive approach. Meanwhile the text enshrines the role of employee representatives when it comes to preventing occupational risks and aims to protect employees from social exclusion and focuses on the issue of quality of life at work.
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The agreement penned by social partners does not bring about a revolution, often limiting itself to recommendations, but places a prevention-focused approach at the heart of occupational health at French companies. In addition to covering classic risks in prevention policies (physical, chemical, biological, constraints linked to work situations), the agreement provides for the consideration of risks linked to rapid changes in work organisation and psychosocial risks that, although they may have

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