The Ministry of Labor proposes creating the figure of the “territorial prevention agent”, a person designated by unions and employers who would monitor occupational risks in workplaces with fewer than ten workers. In those tiny companies, the centrals denounce, that’s where they do the most. The department of Yolanda Díaz proposes this change to the social agents in its proposal to reform the law on the prevention of occupational risks, a negotiation in progress and which continued this Monday with a new meeting, from which the Ministry of Labor came out with reproaches against the CEOE for “warming up the chair” and presented it with an ultimatum: it asks the business representatives to give their position before the end of November, to which the employers responded that they have already contributed ideas and report having suffered. From January to September, 547 people have died at work, 5% less than last year, but with a significant increase in some sectors.
The ministry also proposes a change in the regulations for prevention services, according to the draft reform to which EL PAÍS has had access, which would imply more eyes on companies that commission this service from other companies, known as services. The unions consider it common for these entities, although they are specialized in the matter, to be overloaded and barely monitor. To correct the situation, the ministry proposes creating the figure of the “interlocutor” with the specialized company, an employee who must mediate with this service when the employer does not have the training or the means to take care of it.
The proposal to create territorial prevention agents was transferred to social agents in September. As specified by the ministry, these “will carry out specific preventive functions in those companies or workplaces with fewer than ten workers that do not have legal representation.” That is, they would be a kind of reinforcement of the Inspection to monitor those companies without union representation and with fewer than ten employees.
These territorial agents will be designated in each autonomous community in common agreement by the most representative unions and employers’ associations of the sector in question. Its functions include “collaborating with company management and workers to improve preventive action”; “exercise monitoring of compliance with prevention regulations”; or “carry out visits to workplaces to monitor the status of working conditions,” among others.
If this ministry proposal is consolidated in the regulations, it would extend a figure that already applies in other autonomous communities, such as Asturias, Navarra, developed through agreements between the regional governments, unions and employers of the region.
“The territorial prevention agents will act jointly. Their activity will be the subject of annual planning in accordance with the criteria and objectives set by the organizations that have designated them.” [sindicatos y patronales] in collaboration with the technical body on preventive matters of the autonomous community,” adds the Labor proposal.
More surveillance of outside prevention services
The Ministry of Labor has already sent three reform drafts to the social agents: the second in September, which introduced the figure of the territorial agent, and last week a third text. The main novelty of this new approach is the creation of the figure of “interlocutors with the external prevention service”, the companies to which many companies entrust these functions. This figure would be articulated in the regulations of prevention services, where it will specify (if the idea of Work prospers) that in the event that the employer does not have the training to perform such a function “he must designate a person to assume his functions.”
These interlocutors must be company employees with “necessary qualifications and experience for the performance of their duties, as well as the corresponding preventive training.” Among its functions are “advising the company about the content of the preventive agreement”; “collaboration with the company in the interpretation and assessment of the risk assessment”; and “making proposals and information to the prevention service about those situations that may require the review of preventive activity.”
More attention to mental health
This new proposal from the ministry also raises other novelties in terms of mental health: it crystallizes the commitment to develop a specific regulation that addresses protection against and introduces more content on this type of risks in the mandatory courses that prevention specialists must take.
The March proposal already introduced a key change in this matter. While the law in force now says that “illnesses, pathologies or injuries suffered due to or on the occasion of work will be considered as damages derived from work,” the new Labor proposal extends this definition: “And that they are likely to affect the physical, physiological, cognitive, emotional, behavioral or social spheres.”
On the other hand, the Labor approach establishes that the employer must establish its own prevention service when the company has more than 300 workers (compared to the current 500) and includes construction in the group with an even greater requirement in this regard, which is claimed from 150 (previously 250). Monitoring of preventive actions among self-employed employees is also reinforced.
Other modifications proposed by Labor focus on attention to the climate crisis, the gender and age perspective. It also underlines the right to digital disconnection and that the employer will only be able to undertake first-person prevention with staff of ten employees or less, instead of the current 25.
difficult agreement
It has been a long time since the ministry has been able to close a three-party agreement, in which employers participate in addition to the unions (). All the voices of social dialogue have been underlining the importance of a change in this regulation having everyone’s support, but hopes for a consensus have faded in recent months. Be that as it may, the unions are rushing the Executive, since the negotiation held its first meeting.
The Labor ultimatum makes visible the distance between the positions, which leads to another agreement of the ministry only with the employee representatives. This makes it difficult for the reform of the prevention law to go ahead in Congress, given the rejection of the parliamentary right (which has a majority in the Legislature) to the social dialogue agreements that the employers do not subscribe to. That opposition ruined the . The change in the regulations for prevention services has more options to prosper, as it does not have the status of law. Social dialogue sources emphasize that the Government can modify only with the approval of the Council of Ministers.
