European Court ruling on employers’ duty regarding health and safety

In June 2007, the European Court of Justice made its ruling in the case of the Commission of the European Communities v United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in relation to health and safety at work. The case deals with the obligations of Member States to provide an appropriate legislative instrument that will secure employer compliance with the duty to ensure the health and safety of workers at their place of work.

Provisions of health and safety directive

Employers have a legal obligation to ensure the health and safety of their workers while at the workplace, but this obligation does not imply a wider duty to ensure a zero-risk working environment. In a case at the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the provisions contained in Directive 89/391/EEC of 12 June 1989 have been explored. The directive requires the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work and furthermore states that these measures ‘should not be subordinated to purely economic considerations’. It also requires Member States to ensure adequate controls and supervision. However, the issue on which the ECJ had to make a ruling in the case of the Commission of the European Communities v UK Case C-127/05 related to how far the obligation on employers extended and what the duty to workers’ health and safety required.

Background to case

On 29 September 1997, the European Commission set out a number of complaints against the UK government, submitting that it had failed to properly transpose Directive 89/391/EEC into national legislation and, in particular, the provisions contained in Article 5, paragraph 1. This article states that the duty on employers to protect the health and safety of workers applies to every aspect related to their work. The Commission was of the opinion that, because UK legislation required of employers only that they introduced measures ‘so far as is reasonably practicable’, the UK’s efforts did not lead to the result intended by Article 5(1) of the directive.

While the Commission accepted that the directive did not impose on employers a duty to provide an absolutely safe working environment, it considered that employers were responsible for the consequences of any event detrimental to the health and safety of workers at the workplace. The Commission held this view on the basis of Directive 89/391/EEC having seemingly abandoned the principle of ‘reasonably practicable’ in favour of the stricter duty. The UK government contested this opinion and argued that the directive only imposed a duty to provide a safe workplace and that it did not lay down an obligation to provide compensation for damage suffered as a result of workplace accidents.

Ruling of ECJ

The ECJ began its analysis of the key issues by considering the legislative history of the directive in question. On completion of this step, on 14 June 2007, the ECJ went on to rule that Article 5 of the directive was not intended to impose a no-fault liability regime on employers, as the obligations it imposed on employers did not establish that level of liability. For these reasons, the ECJ rejected the grounds of the action brought forward by the Commission and thus dismissed the claim.

Trade union reaction

In a press release on 15 June 2007, the Confederal Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), Walter Cerfeda, who is responsible for health and safety at work, expressed ETUC’s concern that the ruling ‘could be a sign of encouragement from the European court to States who want to cut back European legislation on workers’ rights’.

Sonia McKay, Working Lives Research Institute