Risk assessment for safety and health at work in the selection of work equipment, chemical substances or preparations and in the arrangement of workplaces. Framework Directive 89/391/EEC of 12 June 1989 on health and safety at work requires employers to prepare a health and safety risk assessment at the workplace. The recommendation of the National Joint Committee on Induction of New Workers in Hotels and Restaurants is that information for new workers should include working conditions, hygiene and safety at work.
The main objective of the preventive service is to reduce the number of accidents in the sector by raising awareness of health and safety issues and presenting practical preventive measures to improve the well-being of workers. Recommendations for prevention in the guideline include the immediate establishment and operation of safety and health committees in all hotels, based on the provisions of the current legislation. For Horeca, the sector provides some checklists, guidelines and recommendations regarding the various risks and hazards in the sector.
The aim is – starting with the main problems in the sector (such as accidents and manual handling) – to provide the basic rules for a risk assessment in the hospitality sector in order to achieve an appropriate level of prevention. Taking into account the often low qualification levels of employers and employees in the hospitality sector, the BGN has recently developed 'low-level' media: a portal referring to stress in the hospitality sector (www.gastronomie-stress.de), an audio CD entitled 'The emotional parachute' in which the subject of emotional competence is central, an educational game for trainees and a concept for a television program for companies. In the Netherlands, there are no specific occupational safety and health provisions for the sector.
The project (which is also included in the case study) started with a pilot project with eight companies in the hotel and restaurant sector. Horeca Branche institute, which handles training and education tasks on behalf of the social partners in the sector, also supplies a wide range of information to and about the sector. The Fecoht-CCOO information campaign includes a brochure which is distributed to workers in the sector.
The National Foundation for the Prevention of Occupational Risks (FPRL) has funded a number of projects aimed at promoting health and safety in the workplace. The royal decree stipulated that from January 1, 2007 smoking is prohibited in hotels and restaurants. Many studies have been published on the effects of secondhand smoke in hotels and restaurants.
There are no specific occupational safety and health laws in the hospitality sector, but new provisions in tobacco laws mainly concern the protection of restaurant workers. In most countries, the share of part-time work in hotels and restaurants is higher than in the rest of the economy. The main aim is to reduce the number of accidents in the sector by raising awareness of health and safety issues and presenting practical prevention measures to improve worker well-being.
It is important to 'guarantee the occupational and supplementary pension rights of workers exercising their right of mobility' and 'to coordinate social security for EU nationals, and extend it to non-EU nationals' (Hotrec, 2001 ).
Hotrec is campaigning for several provisions in the regulation to make it more sensitive to the needs and realities of small businesses. The required measures are designed from a public health perspective and focus more on consumer protection than on worker protection, but they undoubtedly have a positive impact on working conditions in the sector. On December 28, 2004, a new regulation regarding the prevention of Legionnaires' disease came into effect.
The regulation applies only to the accommodation sector, but not to restaurants, fast food outlets and catering. The Hygiënecode Horeca 2004 code of practice focuses mainly on hygiene rules in the sector, but also on personal hygiene. Legislation is often formulated at a general level, sometimes does not correspond to the unique situations of the sector, and sometimes even leads to the opposite of what the legislator wants to achieve.
A concrete example of this is mentioned in the Horeca report by Eurofound, where a new regulation for "marginal" part-time workers created chaos in the sector and led to the encouragement of illegal work instead of regulating this form of flexible employment (Klein Hesselink, 2003) . Although some Member States initially excluded the sector in whole or in part from legislation, specific measures are increasingly being implemented in the sector (eg banning smoking in restaurants except in designated, closed, ventilated smoking rooms). Where the smoking ban is total, it has improved working conditions for workers in the sector.
Food hygiene regulations aim at consumer protection (Regulation no. 852/2004 on food hygiene) and encourage companies to apply general hygiene rules for food products that must be respected during preparation, processing, production, packaging, storage. , transportation, distribution, handling and offering for sale or supply to the consumer. The regulations refer to HACCP standards which are similar to the risk assessment principles in the OSH regulations and require a systematic approach. They emphasize that it needs to become more sensitive to the realities of small companies and stress the importance of practical guidance for small businesses (Hay, 2005, Ferco 2001, Hotrec, 2005).
Especially with regard to working hours, employers emphasize the need for (more) flexibility to adapt to seasonal changes in the industry. At the national level, sectoral collective agreements regulate working hours in the sector (e.g. in Belgium and France). It is clear that the flexibility patterns demanded by employers only work if they are also adapted to the needs of employees.
