The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) devotes week 43 of the calendar to reminding us that working in a healthy and safe way is an obligation.
One of the statistics put on the table by the European Week for Safety and Health at Work – held since 1992 – is chilling: every year there are 80,000 work-related deaths on our continent. The aim of this Week is to raise awareness of health and the prevention of occupational risks, as well as to guarantee proper conditions for workers throughout Europe.
On the REAC blog we have previously addressed issues related to occupational risk prevention: the Roadside Assistance Protocol or the importance of seeing the road as a workplace where maintaining safety must be a priority for everyone who works on it.
Beyond technicians stating that in occupational risk prevention it is compulsory to do this or that, the priority is to understand that both roadside assistance companies and those who work for them – business owners and tow-truck operators – should regard prevention as a useful tool that entails responsibility. Professionalism and seriousness, in short, as stated by Gest Red’s technical director, José Carlos Rodríguez during the talk “Prevention management, business management”, given as part of the activities organised by REAC at the last edition of Fireca, at Fibes Seville.
A culture of prevention
A culture of prevention is essential, according to Rodríguez, an expert in the field. Vulnerability to workplace accidents particularly affects the self-employed, women and young people (the latter precisely for reasons related to job mobility… among other factors).
When a workforce takes occupational risk prevention seriously, it not only avoids unnecessary risks, accidents and illnesses, but also ends up seeing its employer as a serious company that cares about the people who work for it.
Good practice is, here, a way of involving those who work in a tow truck service or carry out complicated roadside rescues. At REAC, one of the pillars of the organisation is precisely occupational risk prevention training at different levels, as comprehensive as it is specialised. It is aimed at tow-truck operators, mechanics, middle managers and call-centre operators. Find out more!