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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
Aim and content of the Directive
The Pregnant Workers Directive is one of the ‘daughter Directives’ enacted as a follow-up to the 1989 Framework Directive on Health and Safety. While the Framework Directive introduced a general system of occupational safety and health, based on risk assessments, preventive measures, and the collaboration of employers, employee representatives and occupational physicians, the focus of the Pregnant Workers Directive is on new or expectant mothers, that is, on a particularly vulnerable group of workers who face specific risks at the workplace. The general aim of the Directive is ‘to encourage improvements in the safety and health at work of pregnant workers and workers who have recently given birth or who are breastfeeding’ (Article 1).
To fulfil this aim, the Directive includes a set of fourteen compulsory minimum standards. These can be divided into standards relating to occupational health and safety in a narrowsense, and into provisions belonging to the realm of employment rights more generally understood.
So far as health and safety issues are concerned, the Directive provides the following.
Employers have to evaluate the potential risks to new and expectant mothers working in their establishments, taking into account a list of agents, processes and working conditions specified in the first annex to the Directive.
Female workers and/or their representatives must be informed about the results of this assessment.
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