Book contents
- Front matter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: flexible EU governance in domestic practice
- 2 Theorising the domestic impact of EU law: the state of the art and beyond
- 3 EU social policy over time: the role of Directives
- 4 The Employment Contract Information Directive: a small but useful social complement to the internal market
- 5 The Pregnant Workers Directive: European social policy between protection and employability
- 6 The Working Time Directive: European standards taken hostage by domestic politics
- 7 The Young Workers Directive: a safety net with holes
- 8 The Parental Leave Directive: compulsory policy innovation and voluntary over-implementation
- 9 The Part-time Work Directive: a facilitator of national reforms
- 10 Voluntary reforms triggered by the Directives
- 11 The EU Commission and (non-)compliance in the member states
- 12 Beyond policy change: convergence of national public–private relations?
- 13 Implementation across countries and Directives
- 14 Why do member states fail to comply? Testing the hypotheses suggested in the literature
- 15 Three worlds of compliance: a typology
- 16 Conclusions: myth and reality of social Europe
- References
- Index
5 - The Pregnant Workers Directive: European social policy between protection and employability
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Front matter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: flexible EU governance in domestic practice
- 2 Theorising the domestic impact of EU law: the state of the art and beyond
- 3 EU social policy over time: the role of Directives
- 4 The Employment Contract Information Directive: a small but useful social complement to the internal market
- 5 The Pregnant Workers Directive: European social policy between protection and employability
- 6 The Working Time Directive: European standards taken hostage by domestic politics
- 7 The Young Workers Directive: a safety net with holes
- 8 The Parental Leave Directive: compulsory policy innovation and voluntary over-implementation
- 9 The Part-time Work Directive: a facilitator of national reforms
- 10 Voluntary reforms triggered by the Directives
- 11 The EU Commission and (non-)compliance in the member states
- 12 Beyond policy change: convergence of national public–private relations?
- 13 Implementation across countries and Directives
- 14 Why do member states fail to comply? Testing the hypotheses suggested in the literature
- 15 Three worlds of compliance: a typology
- 16 Conclusions: myth and reality of social Europe
- References
- Index
Summary
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.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Complying with EuropeEU Harmonisation and Soft Law in the Member States, pp. 73 - 93Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005