The control part is an integral element of the campaign. It consists in carrying out, according to identical guidelines, inspections in the field of manual handling of loads in all European Union countries.

SLIC working group has defined the qualitative and quantitative expectations concerning control campaign in the field of manual handling of loads in the retail trade and building engineering sectors.

According to those guidelines:

• 80% of SLIC member states will carry out control in the field of manual handling of loads in 2008 (23 states).
• Each state taking part in the project will declare the number of subjects to be covered by the control within the MHL inspection. The declared number of inspections should be as large as possible in order to exert a meaningful influence on the retail trade and building engineering sectors.
• Each state taking part in the project will carry out the number of inspections in the retail trade and building engineering branches equal or higher than declared.
• Inspection results will be collected using evaluation list forms for the assessment of the campaign. Detailed data concerning the number of planned inspections are available in national labour inspectorates’ offices.

The subject matter of inspection
The inspection will mainly concentrate on:

1. Whether the company/institution made the risk assessment of manual handling of loads?
2. Whether steps and solutions were undertaken aimed at counteracting the biggest threats?

Each inspection can widen the scope of control in order to facilitate the best possible identification of problems connected with manual handling of loads and, by the same token, the most effective protection of employees against musculoskeletal ailments.

The following problems can be checked during the inspection:
Retail trade sector (problems in Annex)
Building sector (problems in Annex)

Detailed information about the scope of the planned inspections can be obtained from domestic labour inspectorates.

Course of the inspection campaign
With a view to the assumptions of the campaign and its schedule, the implementation of the inspection tasks has been envisaged for autumn, that is September-November 2008. The inspections will be carried out after the conclusion of the cycle of trainings for labour inspectors engaged in the campaign and after receiving ready-to-disseminate publications. The first stage of the inspection campaign will have a preventive character, the second one – verifying.

In connection with the fact that domestic labour inspectorates run their own long-term preventive and control programmes from the field of manual handling of loads and the specificity of operation of the individual inspectorates, the date of starting and ending the control campaign is treated flexibly and is up to the domestic labour inspectorates.

Auxiliary materials for inspection
During the control campaign in 2008, labour inspectors can use the following tools:

• control lists allowing for the identification of threats,
• KIM and MAC tools,
• domestic tools applied in the heretofore practice of MHL problems control.