.jpg)
2004 UPDATES IN OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY.
In February, the new Occupational Health and Safety Act, Law 54/2003, entered into force. This legislation aims to provide a unified approach to occupational risk prevention, update outdated regulations, address new situations not previously covered, and align Spanish law with EU requirements.
The core objectives of this Act are as follows:
· Reducing workplace accidents.
· Promoting a genuine culture of risk prevention at work.
· Integrating occupational risk prevention into company management systems.
· Ensuring compliance with occupational health and safety regulations, through strengthened monitoring and enforcement measures and the updating of applicable penalties.
KEY CHANGES TO RISK PREVENTION AT company LEVEL:
One of the principal aims of this reform is the integration of risk prevention into company operations. This is achieved through:
· The development of a risk prevention plan.
· An ongoing programme of monitoring of preventive activities.
· Continuous improvement in the identification, assessment and control of risks that could have been avoided.
Every company is required to carry out a risk assessment, that is, an evaluation of its activities, the characteristics of each role, and the employees who perform them.
Where the assessment identifies any risks, the company must take action to eliminate or reduce those risks. This must be done by planning the necessary activities, setting timelines for their completion, and designating those responsible along with the human and material resources required.
In addition, the employer must ensure the effective implementation of the activities set out in the plan by carrying out continuous monitoring of the assessment.
AMENDMENTS TO THE ENFORCEMENT AND PENALTIES FRAMEWORK:
In relation to conduct classified as subject to sanctions, new categories have been introduced. Those classified as serious and very serious infringements are:
· Failure to monitor the implementation of planned preventive measures.
· Failure by the employer responsible for the workplace to adopt the necessary measures to eliminate occupational risks.
· Failure to draw up the occupational health and safety plan.
· Failure to appoint health and safety coordinators (in the construction sector).
· Failure to ensure that risk information is provided to employers working on construction sites (also applicable to the construction sector).
· Commencing the provision of services by workers without any documentation evidencing that they have received adequate information on risks and preventive measures.
· Entering into agreements designed to circumvent liability (between the principal company and contractor or subcontractor, or between the principal employing company and the client company).
This law requires employers who have not yet formally documented their occupational risk prevention plan to do so in writing within 6 months of the law's entry into force.
PREVENTIVE OBLIGATIONS REGARDING COORDINATION OF BUSINESS ACTIVITIES:
As a complement to this law, Royal Decree 171/2004 has been adopted, which governs occupational risk prevention in the context of coordination of business activities.
The primary purpose of this regulation is to establish the minimum requirements that employers sharing a workplace must implement in order to prevent occupational risks, ensuring that the simultaneous presence of different companies does not adversely affect the safety and health of workers.
It is important to have a clear understanding of certain definitions introduced by the law, with a view to establishing the obligations of each party in relation to the coordination of business activities and the safeguarding of workplace safety.
1.- A workplace is defined as any built or unbuilt area where workers must be present or to which they must have access in the course of their work.
2.- The owner employer of a workplace is the person who has the capacity to make the workplace available and to manage it.
3.- A principal employer is an employer who contracts or subcontracts with other parties for the performance of works or services that form part of the employer's own core activity.
CONCURRENT PRESENCE OF WORKERS FROM SEVERAL COMPANIES AT THE SAME WORKPLACE:
Where workers from two or more companies are carrying out activities at the same workplace, those companies must cooperate in applying occupational health and safety regulations in the manner prescribed by law.
The duty to cooperate applies to all companies and self-employed workers operating concurrently at the workplace.
Companies must keep one another mutually informed of the specific risks arising from the activities they carry out at the workplace that may affect the workers of the other companies present at that site.
OBLIGATIONS OF THE OWNER EMPLOYER WHERE SEVERAL COMPANIES ARE PRESENT AT THE SAME WORKPLACE:
The owner employer of the workplace must adopt, in relation to the other employers present, all necessary health and safety measures.
In addition, the owner employer must inform the other employers of the risks inherent to the workplace that may affect the activities carried out by those employers, as well as of the emergency procedures to be applied.
This information must be adequate and must be provided before activities commence. It must be provided in writing where the risks inherent to the workplace are classified as serious or very serious.
Once this information has been received, the owner employer must issue instructions to the other employers on preventing existing risks that may affect the workers of the other companies present. All employers are required to comply with these instructions.
CONCURRENT PRESENCE OF WORKERS FROM SEVERAL COMPANIES AT A WORKPLACE WHERE A PRINCIPAL EMPLOYER EXISTS:
Before work begins at their premises, the principal contractor must require contractors and subcontractors to provide written confirmation that they have carried out a risk assessment and drawn up a preventive action plan for the contracted works and services.
Likewise, the principal contractor must require those companies to provide written confirmation that they have fulfilled their training obligations in respect of the workers who will be providing services at the premises.
It will also be the responsibility of the principal contractor to verify that the contractors and subcontractors operating at their premises have established the necessary coordination arrangements between them.
To this end, the proprietor of the premises must appoint one or more persons responsible for coordinating preventive activities; those persons must hold the appropriate health and safety training qualification.
The persons responsible for coordination shall be empowered to:
· Access any area of the premises.
· Issue the instructions necessary for the fulfilment of their functions to the companies operating on site.
· Receive the information that companies are required to share with one another, and any health and safety documentation necessary for the performance of their coordination duties.
· Propose to the companies the measures to be adopted to prevent existing risks.
