Posted By CFT Pete In my opinion it is in a mess, the 1919 Labour Act and the 1980 Working Conditions Act were at the core of the H&S of the Netherlands, the 1919 Act I believe has been superseded by the new working hours Act and the working conditions Act replaced the 1934 safety Act, stay with me; responsibility for the enforcement of health and safety law lies with the officials of the Labour Inspectorate. We have been recently taken over (last week) by an International Group trading out of the Netherlands, I am therefore trying to get my head round the whole Euro thing, 6 pack not withstanding. The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions stated; 'The Dutch model of occupational health services may be due for far-reaching revision, following the January 2003 opinion of the Advocate-General of the European Court of Justice in a case brought by the European Commission against the Netherlands. The Advocate-General's opinion - generally followed by the Court - stated that Article 14 of the Dutch Working Conditions Act is in conflict with the provisions on protective and preventive services in the 1989 health and safety framework Directive. The Dutch law allows companies to choose between using internal and external experts to provide such services, but the Advocate-General stated that the Directive gives priority to the former. On 16 January 2003, the Advocate-General of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued an opinion (on case C-441/01 Commission v the Netherlands) to the effect that Article 14 of the Dutch Working Conditions Act (Arbeidsomstandighedenwet) is in conflict with European Union regulations on protective and preventive services.' All-be-it, this brief extract was written in 2003 so things 'might' have changed. I to am looking at the Netherlands for future construction based projects and need to do much investigation before getting involved. So how well the commission has done with the Netherlands this writer has yet to establish. CFT

Posted By CFT Pete I'd also focus quite heavily on the pre construction information, it gives those concerned an opportunity to shout at you at say "what about the Netherlands dur de dur information?" If I get anything I'll post. Charley