HOSPEEM is the European hospital and healthcare employers' association The association aims to regroup at European level national employers' associations operating in the hospital and healthcare sector, in order to co-ordinate their views and actions with regard to a sector and a market in constant evolution.
RESPECT
Effective approaches to tackling third party violence in the workplace
The Cross-sectoral Social Partners framework agreement on violence and harassment in the workplace leaves to the Member States the decision whether to include the issue of third party violence in each specific implementation. A number of European Sectoral Social Partners decided that the issue was of sufficient concern for them to consider the possibility of a multi-sectoral approach to raising awareness of the problem and encouraging prevention and the development of policies and partnership solutions at the national level. A first informal meeting was held on 28 June 2007, which was followed by another meeting co-ordinated by the European Commission on 20 September 2007. This was attended by employers organisations from the postal, commerce, hospital and local government sector, as well as by trade unions from the postal, education, hospital, local government and commerce sectors. As a result, it was decided that a declaration of intent should be send to all relevant sectoral social partners, which would allow them to indicate the importance of dealing with the issue in recognition of the existing cross-sectoral social partner agreement and to commit to a multi-sectoral approach to addressing it.
The declaration of intent was signed in November 2007 by EPSU, HOSPEEM, CEMR, Uni-Europa and EuroCommerce, who were later joined by CoESS, representing employers in the private security sector.
The technical multi-sectoral seminar on third party violence was held on 14 March 2008. The cross-sectoral social partners presented the history, aim and content of their autonomous framework agreement; the European Foundation provided statistical information on the prevalence of violence and harassment in the workplace and third party violence in particular from their surveys; and case studies and existing tools to deals with the issue were presented from the private security, commerce, local government and hospital sectors[1].
Two follow-up meetings were held subsequent to the technical seminar to discuss how to proceed in relation to a potential multi-sectoral initiative. At the most recent meeting on 4 July 2008, HOSPEEM, CEMR Employers Platform, CoESS, EuroCommerce, EPSU and UNI-Europa agreed that third party violence at work is a growing mutual concern and recognised that joint action at all levels is necessary to tackle the problems.
It was decided to develop, under the form of two separated (employers and trade unions) but coordinated projects, a multi-sectoral Action Plan that would:
> Aim to reduce the overall level of third-party violence and to mitigate the negative effects
> Complement the 2007 cross-sectoral framework agreement adopted by ETUC, Businesseurope, CEEP and UEAPME, and particularly its chapter 4.
> Take account of health and safety regulations and existing frameworks
> Provide an instrument to raise awareness across Europe of the different issues concerning third-party violence
> Confirm the responsibility of employers, in cooperation with trade unions and workers, to ensure and promote a working environment free from third-party violence
> Identify the different measures and processes introduced by social partners to prevent and manage problems of third-party violence at work
> Draw up principles and guidance that can support joint actions by social partners at the different levels to tackle third-party violence
> Give examples of practical measures that can be taken
> Commit trade unions and employers to working together on this issue
> Provide a framework for monitoring, evaluation and review
To facilitate the drawing up of the Action Plan, the different organisations, with the support of the European Commission committed to collect information during the 2nd half of 2008 from their members on how social partners are tackling this issue at the moment.
On this issue was launched the project “RESPECT: Effective approaches to tackling third party violence in the workplace”, it was carried out with the financial support of the European Commission.
The project aimed to collect information on the third-party violence phenomena in Europe and to collected to be spread during the final conference.
The project RESPECT was concluded with a final Conference on 22 October 2009.
Below you will find all the information concerning the Conference:
- Slides presented by the speakers:
- GHK, Final Report Presentation
- Jenny Hambrook and James Ottery, Health and Safety, Hertfordshire County Council;
- William Rosborg and Per Martelius, BYA;
- Coline Donon, Carrefour Europe;
- Kim Sunley, Royal College of Nursing;
- Mika Hellström and Olof Leijon, Stockholm County Mental Health Hospital;
- Steve Phillips, Department of Health, England;
- Draft HOSPEEM, CEMR, EPSU, CoESS, EuroCommerce and UNI Europa Commitment on Third-party Violence at Work, EN, FR, DE;
[1] See http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/social_dialogue/conference_en.htm
