How KAN is organized

KAN is composed of five representatives each from

• the employers,
• the trade unions and
• the State,
  • two of whom are from the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS), the department of the Federal Government responsible for OH&S,
  • with the other three coming from the supreme OH&S authorities of the Länder

plus one representative each from

• the DIN German Standards Institute and
• The Association for the Promotion of Occupational Health and Safety in Europe (VFA) / German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV), which represents the committees of experts of the statutory accident insurance institutions.

With the Central Agricultural Social Insurance Fund (SVLFG) as a permanent guest, all statutory accident insurance institutions are thus involved in KAN's work.

KAN's chairmanship rotates every two years among the representatives of the employers, trade unions and the State.

This essentially tripartite membership complies with the demand of the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC (Art. 7 Par. 4) for an improvement in the involvement of the social partners in standardization. KAN has gone a step further by establishing one office each for the social partners at the Secretariat.

The funding of KAN is shared equally by VFA and BMAS.

The KAN Secretariat is a service provider. It supports the work of KAN by

• formulating comments on standards,
• designing, accompanying and evaluating studies and expertises for the analysis of standardization fields,
• preparing KAN meetings and
• implementing KAN's resolutions.

The Secretariat also addresses itself to the interested public and

• reports on KAN's work,
• holds seminars and conferences and
• conducts an exchange of information and views with OH&S and standardization experts.

Please call the Secretariat if you

• require information on directives, existing standards or current standardization processes,
• wish to draw attention to areas where standards are lacking or insufficient in terms of OH&S, or areas where standardization would be inappropriate from the point of view of OH&S.