Non binding guide to good practice for implementing Directive

FOREWORDTo create more jobs has always been an objective of the European Union. This objective was formally adopted bythe Council at the Lisbon European Council in March 2000 and it is one of the key elements to enhance the qualityof work.Adoption of legislative measures is part of the commitment to include health and safety of workers at work in the globalapproach to well-being at work. In this framework, the European Commission combines a variety of instruments toconsolidate a real culture of risk prevention.This guide of good practice is one of those instruments.Directive 2002/44/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the exposure of workers to the risks arisingfrom physical agents (vibration) seeks to introduce, at Community level, minimum protection requirements for workerswhen they are exposed, in the course of their work, to risks arising from vibration.Directive 2002/44/EC gives ‘exposure limit values’ and ‘exposure action values’. It also specifi es employers’obligations with regard to determining and assessing risks, sets out the measures to be taken to reduce or avoidexposure and details how to provide information and training for workers. Any employer who intends to carry out workinvolving risks arising from exposure to vibration must implement a series of protection measures before and duringthe work.The Directive also requires the Member States of the EU to put in place a suitable system for monitoring the health ofworkers exposed to risks arising from vibration. The evaluation and assessment of risks arising from exposure to vibrationand the implementation of protection measures can be complicated. This non-binding “guide to good practice” willfacilitate the assessment of risks from exposure to hand-arm and whole-body vibrations, the identifi cation of controls toeliminate or reduce exposure, and the introduction of systems to prevent the development and progression of injury.Foreword3