1966 - Vienna
19-24/09/1966
15th International Congress of the Permanent Commission and International Association on Occupational Health (PCIAOH)
The 15th International Congress is held in Vienna, on September 19-24, 1966. The opening address is delivered by the President of the Federal Republic of Austria, Franz Jonas.
There are 1600 participants from 50 countries: the congress is structured in different sessions, with several symposia and seminars, for a total of over 1000 contributions and communications delivered at the same time in 14 rooms.
Structure of ICOH
Beside electing as usual a new Board, major organizational novelties are introduced at the Vienna Congress. The Constitution is changed and Commission Bye-Laws are issued.
The Bye-Laws of Permanent Commission and International Association on Occupational Health (PCIAOH) rule the procedure for general assembly and election of Bureau during congresses.
The 1966 Constitution remarkably redesigns the Commission structure by organically including the major innovations introduced from 1956.
Actually, Committee functioning is ruled with “Scientific Committees” dealing with specific occupational health problems, teaching committees regarding organization of courses and lectures, and standing committees as for instance membership committee and publications committee.
Besides, 4 categories of members are envisage instead of the two previous ones (associate, honorary, benefactor, affiliated) and the total number of members increases from 200 to 700. The Board is enlarged too and now includes the President, the Past-President, seven Vice-presidents and the Secretary-Treasurer, each of different nationality, all elected by the General Assembly for three years, to be renewed only once, except for the secretary who is always re-eligible. The Commission headquarters are moved again to the Secretariat and are no longer at the Presidency. Two are the official languages (before they were four, including Italian and Portuguese).
Triennial congresses are organized by single countries like before but “The Council reserves the right to review the work of the Organizing Committee and make recommendations concerning the date, themes, round tables and main reports of the Congress; furthermore the President has the privilege of fixing the date and time of the General Assembly and of special meetings of Committees”.