Research On Management System And System Of Occupational Health Standards In Germany

Objectives The thesis will systematically study the occupational safety and health legislation and standardization management in Germany and the system of regulations, rules and standards, in order to improve the Chinese system of occupational health standards.Methods The Methods of literature analysis and comparative analysis will be used in the study. The resources are mainly from websites of Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS), Federal Agency for occupational safety and health (BAUA), statutory accident insurance institutions (DGUV, SLVFG), and the commission for OSH standardization (KAN).Contents Analyzing the system of German OSH rules and standards by expliciting the legal status, issue authority, establishment process and scope of each document. Some suggestions will be provided on the basis of comparative analysis between China and Germany. The German technical rules for chemical occupational exposure limits and guidelines for occupational diseases diagnosis will be specifically introduced and compared with Chinese standards.Results The German dual OSH system is peculiar worldwide, the state labour authority and the statutory accident insurance institution cooperate in legislation and control. On the legislation level, the EU OSH directives containing the minimal requirements will be transposed into national laws and ordinances by Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, while statutory accident insistutions enact autonomous prevention regulations under the commission of state authority. In the interests of legal security and practicality, the regulations needed to be fleshed out by rules and standards. The technical rules issued by the state committee with a presumption of conformity are the primary means for concretising the ordinances. The industry rules, informations and guidances adopted by accident insurance institutions are important supplement ways for concretising regulations. Standards and other information documents are further opportunities to support regulations and rules.The expert committees focus on subdivision of working fields by hazards and industries, multi-participation by employer, employee, association of accident prevention institutions, research institute and coordination of all OSH stakeholders and standardization institute. A wide range of reference ressources can be provided while developing rules and regulations.On the comparision of chemical exposure limits, Germany develops a risk-based concept to quantitatively assessing carcinogens, while China has not yet a risk assessment method specifically for carcinogens. On the comparison of criterien for occupational disease diagnosis, unlike the mandatory documents focusing clinical diagnosis in China, the German guidelines only provide doctors recommendations for determining exposure-disease-causality and reporting suspected cases.Conclusions and recommandations The management model and system of OSH rules and standards in Germany has great lessons for our country. Cooperation between the governmental authorities of standard establishment and supervisory, participation involvement and communications of employers, employees, industry associations and standardization organisations should be learned. The systematic construction of occupational health standards should be improved on the basis of risk assessment and control.