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Part VIII: Structures for dealing with occupational and environmental health

1. Introduction

The survey tried to get an idea of the extent to which various structures existed in Bulgaria for dealing with occupational and environmental health. Safety at the workplace should reflect regulatory requirements and enforcement and additional voluntary guidelines, programmes and policies, record-keeping, collective bargaining, osh committees, and workers' participation in general.

Figure 23. Respondents that were aware of national regulations concerning occupational health and safety

2. Health and safety regulations

The respondents' awareness of the existence of national health and safety regulations and environmental regulations was better than their awareness of regulations on workplace exposure levels (See figure 23).

It was estimated that health and safety regulations were put into practice in 59% of the workplaces surveyed, but in 32.8% it was stated categorically that osh regulations were not put into practice (8.2% gave no opinion).

51.8% of respondents stated that penalties were imposed for violations of regulations, but 30.1% thought that they were not. Penalties are imposed more often in the pulp and paper industries, mining and quarrying, hotels and catering and metal manufacturing, and least often in health services, the chemicals industry and agriculture.

There were notable differences between sectors: those activities where it was estimated that health and safety regulations were not put into practice included the wood products and furniture industry, agriculture, pulp, paper and printing industries, construction, chemical products... (See figure 24). These are all relatively dangerous industries, so why are regulations not applied? One explanation is that agricultural workplaces and construction sites, for example, are isolated and often remote workplaces, and which often have more temporary workers and less contact with health and safety services. Because of these factors they are more likely to be by-passed in government inspections. The chemicals and pulp and paper industries were fairly well represented by foreign-owned enterprises in the survey. It may be that these companies work to different - not necessarily lower - standards (although 83.3% of respondents from the pulp and paper industry said that fines were imposed on their workplaces for violations of health and safety regulations.

Figure 24. Workplaces of some industries where health and safety regulations were put into practice and where penalties were imposed for the violations of regulations

In the health industry, 57.1% of the respondents said that health and safety regulations are put into practice, and 14.3% said that penalties are imposed for violations of the regulations. In pulp, paper, paper products and printing industry, only 33.3% said that regulations are put into practice, but, as mentioned above, 83.3% said that penalties are imposed for violations of the regulations.

45.9% of the respondents stated that their union participated in the development of regulations, compared with 36.9% who said that their union did not. Only 32.9% of the respondents were aware of ILO conventions on occupational health and safety.

3. Programmes and policies

In 77.9% of the workplaces, management had a health and safety policy and in 68% a health and safety training programme for workers (See figure 25). These figures were higher for those workplaces which had a management policy to reduce dangerous substances at the workplace (96% and 84.5% respectively). 80.1% of those workplaces which had a health and safety policy had also a health and safety training programme.

Environmental management often requires a complete programme of its own although some companies address environmental issues along with occupational safety and health as part of a comprehensive programme. Today's health and safety issues, particularly in polluting industries, must address risks beyond the workplace walls. Contingency plans are part of planning for disasters, contractors' activities, product liability exposures, etc. More aggressive environmental management incorporates pollution prevention and an active role in environmental improvement. However, only 44.9% of respondents stated that their management had an environmental policy at their workplace.

Figure 25. Workplaces where the management had certain policies related to occupational health and safety

37.2% of workplaces surveyed had a management policy on alcohol testing, which corresponds fairly well to the figure of 35.4% of respondents who said that testing for alcohol is carried out at their workplace - see earlier. Of these, 78.1% did the testing of workers for alcohol. Likewise, only 8.9% of workplaces had a policy on drug abuse, compared with 3.5% of workplaces where testing for drug abuse is actually carried out.

4. Records kept by the management

Records of injuries and illnesses and incident investigations can produce a large quantity of data. Record keeping is important for individual worker case histories of exposures and effects, in which case it is recommended that records are kept for future evidence of potential disease, often for many years after exposure or after leaving a company. Records of incidents can also be analysed to to provide early warning of more serious safety and health problems. Accident and health records can be used to identify hazards, measure safety performance and improvement, and help identify patterns.

According to 72.8% of the respondents, management keeps records on occupational injuries, 61.2% on occupational illnesses and 58.4% on workplace exposure levels (See figure 26).

As discussed earlier, 63.1% of the respondents said that health records (as opposed to records on occupational illnesses) are kept by the company. Of these 73.5% said that management keeps records on occupational illnesses. This seeming discrepancy may be due simply to definitions, whereby occupational illness relates only to illnesses contracted as a result of work activities, and health records refer to the general state of health of the worker at the time of the medical visit. 74.5% of those who said that the management keeps records on occupational illnesses said that health records are kept by the company.

Figure 26. Workplaces where the management keeps records on occupational injuries, illnesses and workplace exposures

Only 26.1% of the respondents knew for how long records were kept. Where the respondents knew for how long they were kept, the length of time ranged from one to 50 years. In most of these workplaces records were kept for 10 to 20 years, with another peak at five years.

5. Collective agreements

In 91.9% of the workplaces in the survey, health and safety was addressed in a collective agreement. In five industries, health and safety was addressed in the collective agreements of all survey units:

• agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing,
• wood products and furniture,
• pulp, paper, paper products and printing,
• hotel and catering, and
• health

In 95.8% of the workplaces where health and safety was addressed in a collective agreement, this was a local level agreement (See figure 27).

Environmental issues were included in the collective agreement in 24.9% of the workplaces.

In 69.5% of the workplaces, the collective agreement covered all workers and in 33.2% only trade union members. The agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing industry was a major exception. In 88.9% of the workplaces, the collective agreement covered only trade union members.

Figure 27. Workplaces with different levels of collective agreements addressing health and safety

6. Health and safety committees

One of the most effective structures for active participation of workers and their trade unions in promoting health and safety at the workplace is through the workplace health and safety committee.

79.8% of the workplaces surveyed had a joint union and management health and safety committee, and 17.8% had a union health and safety committee. Most of those workplaces which had a union health and safety committee had also a joint union and management committee.

Union members of the joint committee were elected by the trade union assembly in 68.7% of the workplaces, and/or nominated by the trade union bodies in 54% of the workplaces.

74.9% of the respondents said that these joint committees were mandated by law, although 16% of the respondents did not know if this was the case or not.

Concerning the frequency of joint committee meetings, it must be pointed out that 34.7% of the respondents did not know and that 4.2% said that the committee does not meet even once a year (perhaps it meets on an irregular basis). The most frequently cited number of times per year the committee meets was four, with one to four times being usual, although monthly or almost monthly meetings were held in 8.3% of workplaces that responded positively to this question.

Figure 28. Workplaces where worker representatives had certain rights related to occupational health and safety

44.1% of the respondents said that the committee is effective.

71.5% of the health and safety committees had women representatives. There were 22 workplaces without any women employees, and 18 of these had a health and safety committee. In 8 of these workplaces, the respondent said that there were women representatives on the committee, in which case it can only be assumed that the women were management representatives. However, there were 16 workplaces where all employees were women, 13 of which had a health and safety committee. But only 11 of these committees had women representatives, leaving two with only male representatives in workplaces where all the employees were women!

7. Workers' participation rights

A company's real assets are its workers and they have a stake in ensuring they can work in a safe and healthful environment. Solutions to safety and health problems often come from affected employees and their trade unions. Research clearly demonstrates that trained health and safety representatives with the support of their trade unions are more likely to exercise their rights and thus contribute to a safe working environment. One of the most important factors in this is the right for representatives to receive training and to exercise their duties during working hours with no loss of pay.

It was therefore encouraging to see that worker representatives had the right to receive training in 80.4% of workplaces, to carry out health and safety duties in 77.4%, and give health and safety training in 75.1%, all during working hours. Other rights that workers have won in some countries, such as stopping dangerous work on behalf of workers, and participation in government inspections, were less common (but these are less common in other countries also). (See figure 28)

Figure 29. Workplaces where the union had the right to receive information, to consult the management and participate in decision making concerning OHS matters and environmental matters

In 86.2% of the workplaces, workers (as opposed to worker representatives) had the right to refuse dangerous work.

Trade unions' rights to receive information from the management, consult with management and participate in the joint decision making were common. In occupational health and safety matters, unions had somewhat more rights than in environmental matters. (See figure 29). Trade unions' participation rights were more common in larger workplaces and in workplaces with foreign ownership.

8. Time spent on health and safety duties

Only 41.8% of the respondents gave some figure when they were asked the average number of hours they spend each week on health and safety duties. 20.6% said that they spend no time at all (0 hours). Most of those who did spend time on health and safety duties gave 1-5 hours (62.6%).

Only in 31.3% of the workplaces was the time spent on health and safety duties paid. But some of those whose time was paid, did not spend any time on health and safety duties. Paid time off to attend to health and safety duties was much more common in larger workplaces and in workplaces with foreign ownership. In the budget sector, time off was paid only in 14.3% of the units surveyed.

Figure 30. Workplaces where the respondent's trade union had certain programmes/policies

9. Trade union policies/programmes

It is crucial that the worker health and safety representative at the workplace can rely on the trade union for support, otherwise he or she will rapidly become discouraged. This is important for both policy decisions and technical back-up. It was therefore interesting to see that 81.6% of the respondents' unions had a health and safety policy. However, only 31.4% mentioned that their union had an environmental policy, and even fewer an alcohol, smoking or drug abuse policy (See figure 30).

Concerning technical support for representatives, it was evident that the majority of unions had access to information resources (72.3%), had a health and safety training programme for workers (66.4%), and had access to independent experts (58.6%).

Figure 31. Workplaces where the respondent's trade union keeps records on occupational injuries, illnesses and workplace exposures

10. Record keeping by trade unions

As discussed earlier, only 5.1% of the respondents said that their trade union keeps health records, but 25.8% of the respondents said that the union keeps records on occupational illnesses. Again this may be that health records refer to general health not necessarily linked to workplace conditions. Record keeping was less common among trade unions than workplace management (Compare figures 26 and 31).

Only 34.1% of those respondents whose trade union kept records gave some figure on the number of years health and safety records were kept by the union. Usually records were kept for five years or for ten years.

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