The European Trade Union Institute’s (ETUI) health and safety at work magazine spring-summer 2018 HesaMag #17 All that glitters is not gold: the dark side of the beauty industry ISSN 2078-6816 1 spring-summer 2018/HesaMag #17 Contents 1/1 Contents Newsflash… p. 2 Editorial Workplaces are also places where we live p. 5 European news Revision of the directive on occupational cancers: a political battle requiring staying power p. 6 Special report All that glitters is not gold: the dark side of the beauty industry p. 10 The fight to protect hairdressers’ health: the inside story p. 12 Working as a nail technician: when beauty is not in tune with health p. 16 The European Cosmetics Regulation: consumers better protected than hairdressers p. 24 Health hazard at the gym: instructor insecurity p. 28 A $10 manicure? The other side of the coin p. 33 “I love it when people tell me about their lives” p. 37 From the unions Fighting for the factory, only to die for it. The exemplary fight of the former Givors glassworkers p. 39 International news The legend of Luigi Di Ruscio p. 43 Books The conversion of an “agri-manager” p. 48 Trade unions and health and safety in the workplace, a complicated history p. 49 5 spring-summer 2018/HesaMag #17 Editorial 1/1 Editorial Workplaces are also places where we live Laurent Vogel ETUI Most of the adult population spends a large in public spaces, and another – lower – set high levels of risk were declared acceptable amount of time at work, whether as hours per protecting people at work. These double when the people affected were at work. For day, days per week or years of active work. standards lead to major health inequalities, instance, the limit value for hexavalent chro- Over and above the actual working hours, as workplace risks vary greatly dependent mium corresponded to a risk level of one in work plays an important role in our relations on a worker’s place in the social hierarchy. A ten exposed workers developing lung cancer. with the world around us: with the people and recent study conducted in Belgium showed Obviously, such risks would not be consid- the things we work with. Work requires us to that women and men aged between 30 and ered acceptable in any other field of regula- use our intelligence, our bodies and limbs, 60 working in the cleaning sector have a tion, for instance with regard to food, air or our emotions. Work is also an important set- much higher early mortality rate than that water quality, transport or consumer safety. ting for socialising. Whatever the work, it al- of management staff, due to a great extent to This all makes it seem as if the world of ways involves some form of cooperation, with the much higher risk of cancer and lung dis- work is governed by different rules, much less the work of any one individual part of a wider eases such as emphysema or chronic bron- respectful of human life. And this aspect is not picture. It is this whole picture that gives the chitis. While the material factors explaining limited to the risk of physical harm to work- work its sense. this situation have been known for a long ers. It also concerns their subordination, the Since the beginning of the Industrial time, the obstacle in the way of effective pre- obligation for them to kow-tow to a company Revolution and the establishment of special- vention is to be found in the high degree of or supply chain hierarchy and its disciplinary ised workspaces like workshops and facto- subordination resulting from the systematic rules. The emergence of the issue of psycho- ries, in most cases workplaces have been de- use of subcontracting. The whole cleaning social risks reveals at what point such work signed as closed spaces, generally subject to sector is geared towards cutting costs – organisation becomes harmful and mutilating. company rules and the whims of employers. whatever the cost. Fighting for workplace health puts a The struggles to make workplaces healthier A major aspect of today’s debates in Eu- major question-mark over the brutal divid- and safer revealed the unacceptable side of rope about recasting the directive on prevent- ing line between life at work and life in gen- work back then. The birth of occupation- ing occupational cancers revolves around eral. The goal must be to tear down this wall al health as a specific discipline in the 19th this question of double standards (see article separating work from other human activities, century saw a form of double standard being on p. 6). The initial proposals put forward by to restructure work to eliminate the distinc- established. Public hygiene laws served as a the European Commission were restricted tion between those performing the work and basis for regulating various areas of public to minimum protection against a very limit- those shaping it, and to reject the double health, while the rules adopted for work- ed number of risks. What was striking in all standards between protecting life in general place health were often a lot laxer, providing these debates was the ease with which very and life at work.• a lower level of protection. Looked at from a liberal perspective, workers’ health rested in the hands of their employers, on a par with keeping machines in good running order or a building in good repair. Even today, the Fighting for workplace health puts majority of those responsible for workplace health policies in the various countries pre- a major question-mark over the brutal fer to rely on voluntary initiatives, on com- pany self-regulation, to preserve the health dividing line between life at work and life of workers. Even now, double standards still exist, in general. with one set of standards protecting people 66 spring-summer 2018/HesaMag #17 European news 1/4 Revision of the directive on occupational cancers: a political battle requiring staying power Cancers caused by work have become one of the main legislative battlegrounds in the European Union. The current revision of the directive can already be seen as a victory for the trade unions, in an overall unfavourable context. But how far will the revision go? Laurent Vogel ETUI The proposal to include diesel emissions in the Directive on carcinogens is the main bone of contention between Parliament and the Council of the European Union. Image: © Belga 77 spring-summer 2018/HesaMag #17 European news 2/4 In Europe, cancers are the main cause of The challenge we are facing is formi- The subsequent period was overshad- deaths related to bad working conditions. dable. Of all the legislation on work-related owed by a legislative paralysis justified by An in-depth look at them reveals a paradox. health risks, legislation in this field has the various pretexts. First, the legislative con- All of them are avoidable: all that needs to be greatest impact on human lives. Effectively text had been made more complex by the done is to eliminate exposure to dangerous fighting occupational cancers involves ques- so-called "better legislation" process which substances at work. However, little progress tioning employer control over the way work meant that any legislative proposal had to has been made over the past few years. In is organised and the use of certain produc- be subjected to an impact assessment revolv- the 1980s and 1990s, a lot of effort was put tion methods. The vast majority of occupa- ing mainly around cost-benefit calculations. into getting asbestos prohibited, with the tional cancers are not due to accidents, but to When complex measures involved impacts battle ending in 1999 with the substance the lack of attention paid to preventing risks covering many decades, these calculations being banned throughout the European in production processes and to the deliberate were generally based on tenuous assump- Union from 1 January 2005 onwards. But negligence of human health in the search for tions very much open to manipulation. subsequent union demands for tighter leg- profits. Second, the launch of the REFIT1 pro- islative measures on occupational cancers gramme in December 2012 constituted a have come up against very effective industry further hurdle, introducing a legislative mor- lobbying and European Commission hostil- Ten years wasted atorium in the field of work-related health ity. It was as if, once the asbestos battle had pending an assessment of all directives. This been won, a new chapter had been started, The process of revising the directive on moratorium, originally planned just for 2014, with occupational cancers moving out of the protecting workers against carcinogens was extended by the Juncker Commission political focus. was finally started in 2016, despite hav- for the whole of 2015. On 6 June 2014, the ing been planned for the 2002-2006 pe- Commission adopted the EU Occupational riod as part of the Community strategy Safety and Health (OSH) Strategic Frame- on work-related health. At that time, four work 2014-2020, without however foreseeing aspects were considered as priority by the any legislative measure concerning cancers. European Commission: the inclusion of re- There was thus a risk of a further multi-year protoxic substances in the directive’s scope, stalemate, despite the fact that occupational the adoption of new occupational exposure cancers kill more than 100 000 people in Eu- limits (OELs), a revision of the existing rope every year. OELs and the adoption of criteria for set- The formation of the new Commission 1. Acronym for “Regulatory ting OELs. under Jean-Claude Juncker in 2014 brought Fitness and Performance In the context of progressively imple- no change to this approach.