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Part I: Description of the survey units

1. Respondents

Altogether, 371 replies were received from Bulgaria. 54.2% of the respondents were members of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB) and 45.8% members of the CL Podkrepa.

67.9% of the respondents were worker representatives and 7.1% health and safety representatives. 25% were of some other position. The reason for this distribution and relative lack of health and safety representatives is not known from the survey - does it mean that there are few safety representatives in Bulgaria because the unions have decided to give health and safety responsibilities to worker representatives; are there no legal provisions for health and safety representatives as an institution...? The interest given over to occupational health and safety (osh) on the part of unions will always be a trade off between worker representatives who also deal with osh and can relate it to other areas of union concerns, and osh representatives who have training in the field but little to do with other areas of union activity.

Figure 1. Workplaces by industry

2. Field of activity

The field of activity will have a profound effect on a union's health and safety policy. The service sector, for example, is obviously less hazardous than manufacturing or construction. Even within a sector health and safety hazards will differ. In the Bulgarian sample, the three dominant industries were metal manufacturing (18.9%), transport and communications (9.6%) and the mining industry (7.1%).

Primary production (mining and quarrying, and agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing) accounted for 10.2% of all Bulgarian survey units. Secondary production's share was 59% (manufacturing 45.2% and energy, electricity, gas and water supply together with construction 13.8%) and the service sector's share was 30.8%, made up of 10.8% "office" work, banking, business, education and administration, and 20% of such industries as retail, transport and communications, hotel and catering and health. (See figure 1)

How does this survey distribution compare with the national situation? Taken as a percentage of GDP, agriculture accounted for 18.7% in 1998, industry for 25.5% (of which, manufacturing for 17.0%) and services for 55.7%. The skew towards manufacturing in the survey probably reflects the distribution decisions made by the unions involved which in turn perhaps reflects rates of unionisation, concerns of which industries are more dangerous, etc. In a small survey carried out by ILO-CEET in 1997 the Bulgarian unions identified activities of concern as the chemical industry, nuclear, construction, cement plants, metallurgy, mining and machining.

3. Size

Generally, the bigger the workplace the safer it is. This is because bigger workplaces may have distinct health and safety policies, sometimes a health and safety director, often occupational health personnel; they will be aware of osh legislation, have more resources to put into improvements; they are more likely to be inspected; and, most importantly, have some trade union representation.

Figure 2. Workplaces and companies/units they belonged to by the number of employed persons

Most of the workplaces surveyed (69.5%) employed a maximum of 50 persons, while most of the workplaces belonged to companies/units that employed more than 100 employees (83.4%). (See figure 2).

In the Bulgarian sample, workplace size varied considerably in all sectors:

• In primary production, the average workplace size was 75 people. The largest mining workplace had 854 employees, and belonged to a company that employed 6,800 employees. On the other hand, there were five workplaces in primary production that employed less than 10 workers.
• In manufacturing, the average workplace size was 85 people. The largest workplace employed 1,017 workers (metal manufacturing), and 38 workplaces employed less than 10 people.
• In the construction, energy, electricity, gas and water supply sector, the average workplace size was 157 employees. The largest workplace employed 1,220 persons, and 13 workplaces employed less than 10 persons..
• In the service sector, the average workplace size was 70 employees. The largest workplace employed 1,400 people, and 42 workplaces employed less than ten.

Figure 3. Change in the number of employees over the last three years

Japanese statistics on occupational accidents by size of workplace confirms that the smaller the workplace the higher the frequency rate of accidents - accidents being seven times more frequent in workplaces of 100-299 employees than in workplaces of 1,000 or more. For example, in manufacturing in Japan the frequency rate in 1997 for occupational accidents was 1.97/100,000 workers in workplaces of 100-299 employees; 1.10 in workplaces of 300-499 employees; 0.62 in workplaces of 500-999 employees; and 0.32 in workplaces of over 1,000 employees.

In all sectors of industry, there was an overwhelming trend to a decrease in the number of employees over the last three years, almost 60% of workplaces overall, but the trend was most noticeable in primary production where 80% of the workplaces had reduced the number of employees. (See figure 3).

Reducing the number of employees can be due to several factors which the survey did not question - unemployment with loss of production, introduction of new technology, etc. or same volume of production with fewer employees, leading to cross-skilling, lean production, longer hours, stress, etc. It is obvious that the latter reason will have an effect on occupational safety and health at the level of the workplace.

Figure 4. Property forms by ownership

4. Property form and ownership

Type of ownership can very well have an effect on occupational safety and health. Foreign-owned companies often come with a background of health and safety legislation and practices in other (usually industrialised) countries. Even if in reality their standards fall to some extent, it should be expected that they maintain some. They also usually have more resources to put into improvements.

According to the World Bank, an estimated 1,000 state-owned enterprises were privatised to June 1998, and a further 1,100 partially privatised. Altogether, one quarter of state-owned capital had been divested as of June 1998. Therefore, a considerable number of enterprises are still publically owned. In the energy sector a restructuring programme has been installed to phase out subsidies to coal mines and district heating companies, introduce economically sustainable energy prices and establish a regulatory environment to encourage private participation in the sector. Efforts to liberalise the agricultural sector have also recently been renewed and 65% of the agricultural land has been restituted to former owners or their heirs. In 1997, approximately 50% of GDP was generated by the private sector, which employed 41% of the labour force.

In this survey, however, privatised enterprises accounted for 35.7% of survey units, and most of them were domestically owned. Most of the units were public owned enterprises (45.5%). New private enterprises accounted for 2% of the units, and almost all of them were predominantly foreign owned. Public sector accounted for 16.1% of the units (See figure 4)

As figures 4. and 5. Show, the majority of enterprises in the Bulgarian sample are domestically owned (89%). Altogether there were 39 units (10.6%) that were at least partly foreign-owned. From the survey it appears that foreign ownership is most common in hotel and catering (40%), and in pulp, paper, paper products and printing (33%). But this may be misleading as there were only five workplaces in the hotel and catering industry, out of which two were foreign owned, and only six workplaces in the pulp, paper, paper products and printing industry, of which two were foreign owned (See figure 5). In absolute terms, other industries in the survey showed more foreign ownership: the textiles, clothing and leather industries for example showed 8 foreign-owned units (of 25), the food and beverage industries also 8 (of 31), mining 5 (of 69), metal manufacturing 5 (of 69) and chemicals 4 (of 23).

Figure 5. Foreign ownership in different industries

5. Women

The average percentage of women employees in the workplaces surveyed was 47%, which compares well to the Bulgarian national female economic activity rate of 47.8% of those aged 15 and over in 1998. However, there were 22 workplaces (6.5%) in which no employees were women and 16 workplaces (4.7%) where all the employees were women. (See figure 6).

It must be pointed out that women tend to be employed in so-called "women's work" and this is confirmed by the survey. The average percentage of women's share of the workforce was highest in the service sector (66%), especially in health, education, retail and wholesale trade. In the industry sector, women's employment was highest in the textiles, clothing and leather industry. It was lowest (25%) in the construction and energy, electricity, gas and water supply industries.

Figure 6. Workplaces by the percentage of women employees

Do women workers make "safer" workers? This is often said, but may be due simply to the fact that they are concentrated in the relatively safe service sector and not so exposed to the traditional hazards of the construction, mining and metal transformation industries, for example. This is not to say that they are not exposed to injury and illness at work - just different types, such as repetitive strain injury and stress which are fast becoming among the major health strains on a company's and country's economy in terms of sheer numbers affected. (See table 1)

Table 1. Accidents at work in the European Union (1994), all branches of activity:

6. Employment relationship

Figure 7. Main sectors of industry by the percentage of permanent employees

Different types of employment status have an independent effect on health-related outcomes at the workplace. This is an important consideration given the present trend towards a proliferation of non-standard workforms (fixed-term contracts, agency work, part-time work, self-employment...) According to a study carried out by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, the working conditions of temporary employees are worse than those of permanent employees. The former are more exposed to painful work positions, intense noise, repetitive movements and short repetitive tasks. From the point of view of work organisation temporary workers, although less exposed than permanent workers to high speed work, have much less autonomy over the management of their work and time. They are also less consulted about organisational change, receive less training and have fewer discussions about their work problems with colleagues, bosses and worker representatives.

Most employees in this survey had a permanent employment relationship. The average percentage of the workforce with permanent contracts was 87%. In 38.1% of the workplaces, all employees had a permanent employment relationship and in 83.7% of the workplaces at least 76% of the employees were permanent.

Surprisingly, permanent employment contracts were most common in the service sector, and even more surprisingly, in retail and wholesale trade, where 57.6% of the workplaces had all permanent employees (See figure 7). The most precarious activities (those in which less than 75% of the workforce had a permanent contract) included primary production, possibly because agriculture is notorious for employing seasonal workers.

Figure 8. Workplaces by the trade-union membership level

7. Trade-unions

Research evidence clearly demonstrates that any programmes that have a lasting benefit on worker morale, improved health and safety and environmental conditions, and productivity are those negotiated with trade unions. Examples abound of studies that show that workplaces with strong trade union representation are safer than those where unions do not exist or are weak. The consensus is that workers who are members of trade unions are more likely to exercise their rights to a safe working environment , they are supported by their trade unions which provide them with training in health and safety and with up-to-date information on workplace risks, making them better equipped to identify risks and propose solutions, especially as part of their work on joint health and safety committees. (For more details on trade union support for worker representatives see Part VIII, Structures for dealing with occupational and environmental health.)

The average trade union membership level in the survey was 67.9%. 68.8% of the workplaces had over 50% unionisation (See figure 8).

The average trade union membership level differed slightly according to sector: 65.3% in services, 67.9% in primary production, 68.8% in manufacturing and 70.1% in construction, energy, electricity and water supply.

In most workplaces (77%) the relations of trade unions with the employer were cooperative in issues concerning occupational health and safety and environment, uncooperative in 20.9%.

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