The health and safety of our employees and customers is managed under our Group-wide health and safety strategy, agreed by the O2 Board and overseen by Health and Safety Champion Richard Poston, Director of Corporate Affairs.
During the year we received no health and safety enforcement notices and have no such actions pending.
The health and safety strategy requires a report from each operating business at the bi-annual Health and Safety Champion's Forum that is currently chaired by Richard Poston. All operating business reports are consolidated into a single Telefonica O2 Europe Group-wide Board report. These reports are reported to the Governance Committee and the main Board twice a year.
We comply with the key elements of the ILO Safety and Health Management System 2001 and the OHSAS18001 Standard, to which we are certified in the UK and the Czech mobile business.
We have health and safety committees in each of our businesses. Their core membership comprises managers and non-managers, trade union and works council representatives where appropriate, Human Resources, Property and Health and Safety departments and others who may be invited from time to time.
We regularly consult recognised trade unions on health and safety. In the UK, representatives from both the Communications Worker Union (CWU) and Connect attend quarterly Safety Committee meetings. We have agreement from both unions that they will also represent non-union members on safety matters.
We are also represented on the European Social Dialogue Committee Health and Safety Working Group.
Key safety issues for O2 are safe driving; fire; work at heights; slips, trips and falls; the use of display-screen equipment; control of contractors; and violence to staff in our retail stores.
Focusing on these key aspects, our health and safety policies include mandatory training for all employees and we have a permanent target of zero tolerance to accidents in the workplace. This does not extend to contractors in some of our markets.
During the year we received no health and safety enforcement notices and have no such actions pending.
In 2006 there were 290 accidents reported, resulting in 2,731 days lost through injuries.1 This number includes Telefónica O2 Czech Republic for the first time.
This is equivalent to 10.6 accidents per 1,000 FTE (Full-Time Equivalent) employees and resulted in 99.4 days lost in sick absences per 1,000 FTE employees.
About 25 per cent of our UK employees have undertaken driver training/assessment.
During the year O2 Germany introduced fresh training on rescue at heights for network employees, following a death the previous year. This annual training is now provided internally and at our own mast sites. In 2006, there were no fatalities as a result of our operations.
In 2006, O2 Germany received a special award for health activities from Germany's economics magazine Capital.
1 Not including the day on which the accident occurred. O2 does not collect data on days lost due to ill health. This number excludes 1st and 4th quarter Airwave data.
