Poor working conditions generate high morbidity

In the first semester of this year, the Labour Inspectorate of Trade Unions (IMS) made 283 work visits on compliance with labour, safety and health at work legislation across multiple enterprises, institutions in the country, employing over 25,880 employees, including 22652 trade union members, – reported Elena Carchilan, head of the Labour Inspectorate of the Trade Unions, at today’s meeting of the CNSM Confederal Committee.

As a result, a large number of minutes were drawn up, with 5195 violations and deviations from the labour law provisions. Elena Carchilan specified that most of them concern the inadequacy of the workplace’s minimum safety and health requirements at work, ignoring the obligation to provide free personal protective equipment. Similarly, the duties and responsibilities of workers in the field of occupational safety and health are not established and approved and employers do not inform employees about the risks to which they are exposed.

More seriously, highlighted the head of the Labour Inspectorate of the Trade Unions, many enterprises and institutions lack internal protection and prevention services. But even if they were created, sometimes managers and specialists are not trained in occupational safety and health. Workers’ training in the given field is not organized according to legal requirements. Often there is no regular training at the workplace of the employees. Occupational risks are not assessed in the workplace and are not being developed, and preventive measures are not implemented to improve the safety and health of workers.

Elena Carchilan also emphasized that employers do not have or do not re-examine the safety and health instructions at work, especially when new normative health and safety regulations are adopted and implemented at country level. As a result, most employees are not provided with appropriate instructions in the field. There are also instances indicating that employers do not organize the medical examination of workers at the employment stage according to occupational risks exposed at the workplace.

There is an increasing trend of morbidity indications with temporary incapacity to work. The head of the Labour Inspectorate of the Trade Unions has confirmed that there is a correlation between the poor working conditions in enterprises, institutions and the higher level of the morbidity level with temporary employees’ incapacity to work.

The Labour Inspectorate of the Trade Unions performs free of charge special instrumental measurements of the levels of the factors of the production environment in the enterprises, institutions and organizations in which trade union organizations operate, as requested by the national-branch trade union centres. In order to obtain recognition from the regulatory authorities to ensure a high level of health and safety protection at work, CNSM completes a package of documents for accreditation of the laboratory at the National Accreditation Centre MOLDAC.

Labour inspectors from the CNSM are working quite actively with their colleagues from the State Labour Inspectorate, especially when it comes to the investigation of serious, fatal accidents at work, and in some temporary incapacity situations in which there were involved trade union members.

Department of Mass Media and International Relations of CNSM