This booklet sets out to help improve awareness of work-related reproductive hazards. They are a vast and complex mix of varied kinds running from chemicals, through ionizing radiation, vibration, heat, biological agents to stress and more. They also have a wide variety of effects, including male and female infertility, miscarriages, birth defects, impaired child development and others. And they receive scant attention. There is probably no other sphere of health and safety at work in which the available information is so piecemeal and lacking.

The booklet reviews and gives a broad-brush picture of the available knowledge for a general readership. It forms part of the general work of our Institute to develop a critical trade union approach to health and safety at work. This particular publication deals in most detail with chemicals, but also provides relevant information on other reproductive risks.

Contents
1. Reproduction and reproductive risks
Reproduction: a complex, delicate, continuous process
Fertility
Male
Female
Reproductive "mishaps"

2. Old and new workplace toxicants
30 chemicals of very high concern for reproduction
Lead, a past but still very present poison
Mercury - no level is a safe level
Carbon disulphide: excitation leads to depression
Solvents: ubiquitous and hazardous
The health care sector: when prevention pays
Seeing the wood through the trees

3. Community legislation: moving jobs preferred over eliminating risks
An incoherent and ineffective jumble
Market regulation
What REACH adds
Prevention at the workplace
The Pregnant Workers Directive: ineffective and potentially discriminatory

4. Better prevention of work-related reproductive hazards
The United States: trade unions and feminist groups join forces for direct action
An obstacle course
Workers, key actors in prevention
A sectoral approach is key
Include reproductive risks in national prevention strategies
The international dimension of action against reproductive hazards

5. Conclusion