Aim and content of the Directive

The general aim of the Young Workers Directive is to protect young workers from work involving dangerous or harmful employment conditions. To this end, it seeks to prohibit child labour, strictly to regulate and protect the work done by adolescents, and to ensure ‘that young people have working conditions which suit their age’ (Article 1). In order to achieve these goals, the Directive comprises thirteen compulsory minimum standards. They fall into standards relating to the area of occupational health and safety more narrowly understood, and into provisions belonging to the field of employment rights defined in a wider sense.

1. With regard to the former, the Directive (Article 6.1) imposes a general duty on employers to ‘adopt the measures necessary to protect the safety and health of young people’ working in their establishments.

2. More specifically, employers are required to carry out an assessment of the potential risks to young people before the actual take-up of work and each time there is a major change in working conditions.

3. If this assessment reveals any risk to young people, the employer has to provide for a free assessment and monitoring of their health at regular intervals. Such a free health check-up also has to be granted to adolescents working nights, both prior to the assignment and at regular intervals thereafter.