Health and safety at work: application of legislation to self-employed workers

PURPOSE : to improve health and safety protection for self-employed workers. COMMUNITY MEASURE : Council Recommendation 2003/134/EC concerning the improvement of the protection of the health and safety at work of self-employed workers. CONTENT : self-employed workers may be subject to health and safety risks similar to those experienced by employees. There are a certain high-risk sectors in which the number of self-employed workers is very high (agriculture, fishing, construction, transport). Therefore, the Council made the following recommendations to the Member States: - to promote the health of self-employed workers, while taking account of the special risks existing in specific sectors; - to choose the most appropriate measures to promote health and safety for such workers, such as legislation, incentives and information campaigns; - to ensure that self-employed workers can obtain information from relevant organisations on the prevention of occupational accidents and diseases; - to ensure that self-employed workers have easy and inexpensive access to training to acquire safety and health skills; - to allow such workers to have access to health surveillance appropriate to the risks to which they are exposed; - in the context of prevention, to take account of the experience of other Member States; - to examine the effectiveness of measures taken after four years. ENTRY INTO FORCE : 18 February 2003.�