The next step was made with the Jenkins Commission (1977–1981) and the Thorn Commission (1981–1985), when OHS started to emerge as a topic on its own, as illustrated by the first action programme devoted exclusively to health and safety at work by the Council. As recognised in the literature, the improved OHS had a substantial economic impact.46 Many
studies have underlined the positive impact of good working conditions on economic productivity.47 This element was discussed in interviews conducted with former European civil
servant Alexandre Berlin. According to Berlin, the emergence of OHS as an autonomous field of action can be explained by the general political context of that time. Indeed, this modification of approach happened in the broader context of a discussion on the relationship between the economic and the social domains at the European level. At that time, some members of the Commission concluded that the social area was not only complementary to the economic field but was just as crucial. Berlin stated that “Without the social, the economic is too abstract”.48
This may have been an important reason the EU institutions decided to engage in a legislative process on health and safety.
The first illustration of this new mindset was the first wave of legally binding acts and Directive focused on quantifiable factors. The first OHS directive was Directive n°77/576/EEC on the harmonisation of national laws on safety signs in the workplace. Following a European scandal about the effect of the vinyl chloride,49 Directive 78/610/EEC on the harmonisation of
occupational exposure limits to vinyl chloride monomers was adopted. It was the beginning of a more significant movement of directives determining the limits of exposure to toxic products at the workplace. This determination of limits could be seen as a quantitative and normative approach. This policy was illustrated by a Framework Directive adopted in 1980 that framed the risks of exposure to chemical, physical, and biological agents,50 which was the basis for
further directives. Three other Directives on OHS were adopted under the Thorn Commission.
46 See Burton, W.N., Conti, D.J., Chen, C.Y., Schultz, A.B. and Edington, D.W., 1999. The role of health risk
factors and disease on worker productivity. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 41(10), pp.863- 877; ILO, 2003. Safety in Numbers: Pointers for a Global Safety Culture at Work.p.17
47 https://healthy-workplaces.eu/previous/all-ages-2016/en/news/benefits-osh-reduced-costs-business-and-better-
conditions-workers-all-ages
48 Berlin, Alexandre. Interview, November 08, 2017. Archives, University of Glasgow. p.2
49 Livock, R., 1979. Science, Law and Safety Standards: A Case Study of Industrial Disease. British Journal of
Law and Society, 6(2), p.173
50 Council Directive 80/1107/EEC of 27 November 1980 on the protection of workers from the risks related to
33 They concerned major accident hazards of specific industrial activities,51 protection from
exposure to metallic lead,52 and protection from exposure to asbestos.53
The reason to focus on the quantifiable approach might have been that these topics covered pragmatic problems. Berlin stated that it was the most “reasonable subject” to start with to find a consensus among the MS.54 In that respect, OHS was easily quantifiable: if there
was no workplace accident, the OHS improved.55 During his interviews, Berlin provided further
details on the variety of origins of the three OHS Directives initiatives.56 Indeed, all the partners
showed eagerness to initiate the discussion that led to the adoption of an OHS Directive. The problem of motivating the discussion on the lead Directive 82/605/EEC contained a particular example of an initiative by an MS government: the economic problem of octane in fuel.57 At the time, a substantial part of the German economy relied on the car industry. Cars
produced were powerful and required a high-octane ratio in the fuel. Therefore, the EU had to find a solution to the German problem, and it had consequences in other countries.58 There were
two ways to increase the octane level in the fuel: either by changing the composition of the fuel or by increasing the lead rating. The latter was the cheaper. Modifying the composition of the fuel would have implied modifications of the production process — it was not reasonable at the European level. Thus, a discussion started to increase the level of lead in the fuel to raise the octane ratio. The direct consequence was the emission of lead into the air. Consequently, the challenge was to mitigate economic and OHS problematics.59 This was an underpinning
problem throughout the development of the EU OHS framework. Everybody agreed on the need to have OHS rules; the challenge was to find the acceptable scope of action for the EU
51 Council Directive 82/504/EEC of 12 July 1982 amending Directive 78/663/EEC laying down specific criteria
of purity for emulsifiers, stabilizers, thickeners and gelling agents for use in food
52 Council Directive 82/605/EEC of 28 July 1982 on the protection of workers from the risks related to exposure
to metallic lead and its ionic compounds at work (first individual Directive within the meaning of Article 8 of Directive 80/1107/EEC)
53 Council Directive 83/477/EEC of 19 September 1983 on the protection of workers from the risks related to
exposure to asbestos at work (second individual Directive within the meaning of Article 8 of Directive 80/1107/EEC); All of them referred to the Framework Directive of 1980 and the action programme of 1974. They were based on Art. 100, Art. 117, and Art. 235 of the TEEC.
54 Berlin, Alexandre. Interview, March 01, 2018. Archives, University of Glasgow p.10 55 Ibid p.7
56 Ibid p.18
57 Council Directive 82/605/EEC of 28 July 1982 on the protection of workers from the risks related to exposure
to metallic lead and its ionic compounds at work (first individual Directive within the meaning of Article 8 of Directive 80/1107/EEC)
58 Berlin, Alexandre. Interview, March 01, 2018. Archives, University of Glasgow p.8 59 Ibid p.5
34 (while balancing the economic interests). This testimony is in line with the findings of some scholars who argue that domestic preferences determine the intergovernmental bargaining behaviour of EU members.60
As we can see, the commitment and level of action of the Commission and the Council in the OHS field have changed over time. At first sight, this wave of legally binding Directives could be seen as a change in the approach to OHS at the EU level when compared to previous actions. However, the Framework Directive of 1980 had conditional content.61 It meant that
even if implementation was mandatory, the method of implementation was flexible and did not match with the expressed aim of harmonisation. Once again, general directions were given to the MS, more as a way to coordinate the actions at the national level. Initially, more particular hazards should have been subject to a directive, but the impossibility of finding common ground for the Directive on benzene stopped the entire policy of determining exposure limits for workers.62 The institutional obligation to adopt a directive unanimously weakened the content
of legally binding instruments considerably, and so marked the end of this quantitative approach. The following Delors Commissions (Commission-Delors I 1985–1988, Commission-Delors II 1988–1992, Commission-Delors III 1992–1995) made further steps in terms of commitment in the OHS field, as well as in European social development in general through the first major institutional change with the SEA.
2.3. The Delors Commissions: 1985 to 1992
The previous European activity of adopting OHS directives stopped due to a lack of consensus in the decision-making process.63 This illustrates a bigger problem that the Thorn
Commission had faced: immobilism, which could have been a sign of the limits of the unanimity processes.64 Therefore, when Jacques Delors was appointed head of the Commission,
60 Hosli, M.O., 1996. Coalitions and Power: Effects of Qualified Majority Voting in the Council of the European
Union. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 34(2), p.255; Schneider, G. and Cederman, L.E., 1994. The change of tide in political cooperation: A limited information model of European integration. International
Organization, 48(4), p.644
61 Directive 80/1107/EEC, Art. 3.1. “In order that the exposure of workers to agents be avoided or kept at as low
a level as is reasonably practicable Member States shall, when they adopt Provisions for the protection of workers, concerning an agent, take the measures (…)”
62 Vogel, L., 2015. The machinery of occupational safety and health policy in the European Union. History,
Institutions, Actors, p.15
63 Ibid
35 his mission was to restart the European dynamic. Delors thought that the best way to achieve a European dynamic was to move forward with economic integration through a single market. The economic priority appears clearly in the white paper that his Commission presented in 1985, alongside various speeches made during his presidencies.65 The establishment of the
single market was the absolute priority, and all the other proposals revolved around it, including social development and OHS.66 In that respect, there were only a few remarks on the social
construction of the EC.67 To overcome the previous paralysis and to establish a single market,
some substantial modifications had to be made to the TEEC. These profound changes were made with the SEA in 1986. Among the various revisions, one dealt directly with the problem of paralysis caused by the unanimity vote: Art. 118A, which extended the qualified majority vote (QMV) of the Council to directives on the working environment. Future directives would combine positive and negative integration, relying upon minimum rather than exhaustive harmonisation. Therefore, the aim was not to have an identical situation everywhere, but equivalent circumstances based on minimum standards. These directives were intended to set minimum requirements and be gradually implemented.
To explore if the introduction of the Article 118A and the extension of QMV to working conditions changed the decision-making behaviour of OHS directives, it is necessary to examine to what extent the QVM changed general EU decision-making. It is then possible to illustrate previous theories on the impact of the QVM in the OHS filed with data collected through interviews. Finally, an in-depth analysis of the Framework Directive 89/391/EEC — especially a comparison between the different drafts provided by the Commission and the European Parliament (EP) — shows a certain continuity with the previous OHS Directives, despite the overall appearance of a major shift.
65 Müller, H., 2017. Setting Europe’s agenda: the Commission presidents and political leadership. Journal of
European Integration, 39(2), pp.136-137
66 Commission of the European Communities, 1985. Completing the Internal Market: White Paper from the
Commission to the European Council (Vol. 85). Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.
point 20
67 The first one was reinforcing the communication with governments and the social partners so that the
opportunities of the establishment of the single market to be completed by appropriate measure to achieve goals. Delors was conscious of this "unbalance" between the social and the economical aspect of his programme, so to compensate he organised the Val Duchess Summit at the end of January 1985 (See Endo, K., 1999. The presidency
of the European Commission under Jacques Delors: The politics of shared leadership. Springer.p.135). This was
36
2.3.1. The institutional context: Did the qualified majority vote change the