Essay: Laws that affect the workplace

According to Susan Hunt (para 1, 2014) all people that work at any job they face several types of different hazards. For example, an office employee will face significant fewer possibilities to be hurt from burns than a cooking chef but on the other hand common accidents and injuries can occur in most working places like slips, falls which are the most common accidents. The author claims that ‘In 2007/08, these accounted for almost four out of every 10 major workplace injuries’ (Susan Hunt, para3, 2014).
There are other statistics for the same year which show that the most common injuries were caused by lifting, handling, or carrying.
According to Susan Hunt (2014) ‘Overall, the three most common types of accident/injury were:
‘ Trips/slips or falls
‘ Electrical incidents
‘ Manual handling/lifting
‘ Some of the most common injuries were:
‘ Sprains and strains
‘ Back injury
‘ Head injury
‘ Neck injury
‘ Repetitive Strain Injury
Other less common injuries/illnesses in the workplace include occupational asthma, deafness, vibration white finger and dermatitis’.
According to the Council of Europe (page 10, article 8, European Convention on Human Rights);
‘Right to respect for private and family life
1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic wellbeing of the
country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
On the corporate/business level, all employees have the expectation for their privacy to be protected, unrevealed and respected. Through the ages among countries, states etc, there have been attempts to come to clear definitions in order to conduct laws that would provide legal shield to what is proved to be good to protect by common sense in proportion with the local culture.
According to Justice of European Commission, in EU on 2012, there was a reform of data protection legislation in which there were ‘proposals that strengthen individual rights and tackle the challenges of globalization and new technologies’.
For example, every time you want to open a bank account or subscribe in a social networking site or book a hotel online, you provide numerous of personal information like your name, credit card number and address. But what about this data? What happens to it? Could it become property of person that shouldn’t? And what rights do you actually have about protecting your personal information?
Overall, everyone has the right to protect their personal data.
As the European Commission states, under European Union law, one’s personal data may only be recorded legally under some specific strict conditions and for a legitimate reason. In addition, whoever collects or manages someone’s personal information should protect it from wrong use and the law guarantees that certain rights of the data owners must be respected. Common EU rules are provided in order to ensure that personal data are under full protection everywhere within EU. An individual has the right to complain or claim compensation if these data get misused.