The aim was to raise awareness and provide information to enterprises and at the same time achieve better compliance with the law, as well as collect good practices. The results of the 1^st wave of the campaign demonstrated that 10% of companies exceeded permissible values for carcinogenic substances. On average 16 workers in every workplace were exposed to carcinogenic substances. In the 2^nd wave of the campaign the inspection results showed that 10% of enterprises did not use carcinogenic substances and showed examples of good practices related to substitution of hazardous substances with safer alternatives. Follow-up inspections proved that 78% of the identified problems were solved.

The campaign priority area was selected based on an external database of occupational diseases from the resources of the Austrian Workers’ Compensation Board (AUVA) and on information from the EU-OSHA campaign concerning management of hazardous substances and the EU Action plan on carcinogenic agents. It was planned that 10% of the total number of inspections would relate to this campaign. For identification of the target group of entities for inspection, the labour inspectorate’s database on economic sectors and numbers of workers was used.

Two inspections were carried out in each selected entity. The duration of inspection activities conducted in an inspected entity was between 2 and 4 hours. Actions in the inspectorate’s office lasted shorter than 2 hours.

Between 10% and 30% of the staff were involved in inspections. The appointed labour inspectors received additional training conducted by one trainer. During inspection activities the inspectors had the following: rationale of inspection activities, checklists, requirements for the preparation of information after inspections, specialist materials for labour inspectors and information resources for employers. At the phase of organisation and informing about the inspection results, the partner of the labour inspectorate was AUVA.

Monitoring and coordinating activities involved three persons (coordinating the campaign, collecting and evaluating data).

Every year, between 5000 and 5400 workplace accidents involving hand knives occur. This mainly concerns enterprises of the manufacturing sector (about 12% of accidents from among the aforesaid number), trade (about 20%), construction (6%) and construction-related trades (about 13%). Approximately 50% of such accidents occur in the above-mentioned sectors, usually during opening of packages. During opening of packages there is a high risk of hand injuries due to the use of conventional knives. Chiefly cardboard boxes, self-adhesive tape and foil are cut. In the course of consultations in enterprises and on construction sites labour inspectors demonstrated that safety knives are equally suitable for many applications as commonly used knives. This practical approach was aimed at encouraging the change of long-standing practices in enterprises.

The campaign topic was selected by the labour inspectorate based on data concerning work-related accidents included in the inspectorate’s own database and in the external database of the Austrian Workers´ Compensation Board (AUVA). Prior to that, AUVA carried out a similar campaign on hand safety. The labour inspectorate’s campaign was more detailed and it built on the campaign of AUVA.

All information on the target group to which the campaign was addressed, as well as activities to be carried out, were specified in the relevant plan prepared before the launch of the campaign.

Individual actions in the framework of the campaign covered visits to workplaces and consultations held e.g. on construction sites, provision of advice, publication of information materials (also audio-visual) on the labour inspectorate’s website and in social media.

The labour inspectorate also prepared a leaflet about knives for various applications, which was well received. It comprised information, among others, that a desirable solution is the use of safety knives with completely automatic retraction of the knife blade. In the case of safety knives with automatic blade retraction, the blade is retracted into the handle immediately after cutting but only if a thumb or a finger has been removed from the trigger.

There is no universal safety knife, but very often optimum solutions exist for individual cutting tasks.