More insistence, more efficiency in ensuring the safety and health of employees’ work

The Labour Inspectorate of the Trade Unions has demonstrated last year that it is willing to supplement its efforts to ensure the safety and health at work of employees, to avoid accidents at work and occupational illnesses. From the information submitted today, February 1, to the members of the CNSM Confederal Committee by Elena Carchilan, head of the Labour Inspectorate of Trade Unions (IMS), it results that during 2017, the inspectors carried out 531 visits, compared to 513 visits the previous year, on the observance of the legislation and other normative acts in the field of work, safety and health at work in several enterprises and institutions, with 42,711 workers, 37093 of whom are trade union members.

Implicitly, the number of drawn-up minutes increased, reflecting 11989 violations and labour law deviations, compared to 9120 violations registered in 2016. Most of these, 9673 cases, with over 2800 cases more than in 2016, concerning the field of occupational safety and health, ie the inadequacy of the minimum safety and health at work requirements, the free provision of personal protection and work equipment, the non-performance of the occupational risk assessment. Another 2147 cases, compared to 1983 events last year, are in the field of labour relations, ie salary arrears, non-observance of the working and rest regime of employees, dismissal of employees contrary to labour law provisions, non-compliance with the minimum guaranteed salary in the real sector, etc. Moreover, IMS has performed 8 repeated visits after expiry of the deadline set in the minutes for the removal of the recorded violations.

According to Elena Carchilan, the increase in the number of violations and deviations from the labour legislation on the occupational safety and health has a direct impact on the indicators of morbidity with temporary incapacity for work, which, according to data from 2016, recorded a significant increase, 53.3 days at 100 employees, compared to 47.4 days in 2015. Consequently, for the payment of temporary disability benefits were spent 348.2 million lei from the state social insurance budget, only in 2016.

According to the preliminary statistical data, in 2017 415 workers’ injury cases were reported to the Labour Inspectorate, 34 less than in 2016, which were reported from various sources. As a result, they have been involved in the investigation of 105 events, 54 of which were fatal. Following investigations, 29 cases were classified as fatal work accidents that led to the death of 32 people and another 34 cases were categorized as serious occupational accidents, because of which suffered 35 people.

Speaking about the areas where the most work accidents occur, Elena Carchilan noted that the largest share of these accidents belong to the agricultural and forestry sector, where there were 11 serious accidents and 6 fatalities, the transport sphere – 6 fatal cases , manufacturing – 5 serious accidents and 4 deadly cases, in the construction field – 3 serious accidents and 3 fatal cases.

Unfortunately, since the 27^th of October last year, that is, after work accident research has become a competence of the 10 agencies / competent authorities in the field of occupational safety, there have been 59 work accidents, of which 11 work accidents deadly, resulting in the loss of 13 people, 4 serious work-related accidents occurred, which have not been researched so far. This violates the constitutional rights of employees to work protection and insurance against accidents at work and occupational diseases.

The CNSM Confederal Committee has approved the list of entities to be visited by IMS representatives during the current year and has entrusted this institution with ensuring control over compliance with ILO Conventions ratified by the RM, labour law, collective agreements and collective labour agreements, the General Council and the Confederal Committee decisions regarding the observance of the rights of the trade union members to the safety and health at work; verify the quality of the assessment of occupational risk factors at workplaces and their plans for protection and prevention.

Department of mass media and international relations of CNSM