European Trade Union Committee for Education

The European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE) supports the “Healthy Workplaces for All Ages”-campaign’ of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA). The new campaign, addressing the challenges of an ageing workforce in order to promote a sustainable working life, was launched on 15 April 2016 by European Commissioner Marianne Thyssen. The campaign aims “to promote sustainable work and healthy ageing and the importance of prevention throughout the whole working life”.

The work that ETUCE is carrying out at present in the field of Health and Safety (promoting decent workplaces in education for a healthy working life) is directly linked to the campaign. The campaign has been present and will continue to be present in the activities carried out in particular in 2016. ETUCE would be happy to provide EU-OSHA with the good practices collected in the course of the joint social partner project on the promotion of decent workplaces in education (to be finalised and adopted by the end of 2016) and of our previous joint project on the recruitment and retention of education staff (2011/12).

In this light, Martin Rømer, ETUCE European Director stated the following: “Recruitment and retention is one of ETUCE’s and its member organisations priorities; With a view to ensure quality education, ETUCE together with the employers in education, EFEE, has elaborated joint recommendations on the recruitment and retention of education staff, identifying the working conditions necessary to raise the attractiveness of the teaching profession for teachers new to the profession and to retain education staff in the profession. We continue our work on this important topic”.

Stressing the importance of safe and healthy workplaces for teachers, school leaders and other education staff, ETUCE, as an official campaign partner, will contribute to and inform its member organisations of the activities and events that take place during this 2016-2017 campaign.