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Part VIII: Structures with dealing with occupational and environmental health

Figure 26. Respondents that were aware of national regulations concerning occupational health and safety

1. Introduction

The survey tried to get an idea of the extent to which various structures existed in the Czech Republic 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.

2. Health and safety regulations

The respondents’ awareness of the existence of national health and safety regulations was better than their awareness of environmental regulations or regulations on workplace exposure levels (See figure 26).

Figure 27. Workplaces of different industries where penalties were imposed for the violation of regulations

It was estimated that health and safety regulations were put into practice in 79.5% of the workplaces surveyed, but in 13.1% it was stated categorically that they were not put into practice (7.4% gave no opinion). The percentage was much lower in hotel and catering, where it was considered that only 50% of workplaces applied health and safety regulations, in the energy and related industries (65.2%), and in research and development (66.7%). In workplaces with some degree of foreign ownership it was much more common that regulations were put into practice than in domestically owned companies.

56.5% of the respondents stated that penalties were imposed for violation of regulations, but 26.6 said they were not. Differences between industries were prominent (See figure 27).

Figure 28. Workplaces of different industries where the respondent’s union participates in the development of the occupational health and safety regulations

62% of the respondents stated that their union participated in the development of regulations. This figure goes down to less than 50% for those in the retail and wholesale trade, the textiles, clothing and leather industry, energy, electricity, gas and water supply, and the hotel and catering industries (See figure 28).

Only 44.8% of the respondents were aware of ILO conventions on occupational health and safety.

3. Programmes and policies

In 97.5% of workplaces surveyed, management had a health and safety training programme for workers, and 84.7% had a health and safety policy (See figure 29).

Workplaces which had a management policy to reduce dangerous substances (See figure 20), also had a health and safety policy, but only 54.7% of the workplaces with a health and safety policy had a policy to reduce dangerous substances.

Figure 29. Workplaces where the management had certain policies related to occupational health and safety

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. 55.2% of respondents stated that their management had an environmental policy at their workplace.

70.6% of the workplaces surveyed had a management policy on alcohol testing, which corresponds fairly well to the figure of 72% of respondents who said that testing for alcohol was carried out at their workplace - see earlier. Likewise, only 9.3% of workplaces had a policy on drug abuse, compared with 5% of workplaces where testing for drugs was actually carried out.

Figure 30. Workplaces where the management keeps records on occupational injuries, illnesses and workplace exposures

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 the respondents, 97.8% of management keeps records on occupational injuries, 84.1% on occupational illnesses and 61.3% on workplace exposures (See figure 30). As discussed earlier, 71.8% of the respondents said that health records (as opposed to records on occupational illnesses) are kept by the company. 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.

Figure 31. Workplaces by the number of years the occupational health and safety records are kept by the management

Only 38.2% of respondents could put a figure on how long records were kept. Where this was known, the length of time records were kept ranged from one to more than 25 years. In most cases records were kept for one to five years (See figure 31). In five industries none of the workplaces kept records for more than five years:

• pulp, paper, paper products and printing,
• energy, electricity, gas and water,
• retail and wholesale,
• hotel and catering and
• banking, finance and insurance

5. Collective agreements

In 93.1% of the workplaces, health and safety was addressed in the collective agreement. In nearly all cases this was a local level agreement. Nearly half of the workplaces (47.9%) with a local level agreement also had a national sectoral agreement addressing health and safety (See figure 32).

Environmental issues were included in the collective agreement in 35% of the workplaces.

In almost all workplaces (96.6%), the collective agreement covered all workers. Trade union members only were covered in the collective agreements of 3.9% of the workplaces. All these workplaces were domestically-owned, and the majority (60%) of them were small (1-50 employees) workplaces.

Figure 32. 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 safety and health at the workplace is through the workplace health and safety committee.

37.6% of the workplaces surveyed had a joint union and management health and safety committee, and 55.7% had a union health and safety committee. Joint committees were more typical of public-owned enterprises. In all, 65% of the workplaces had a health and safety committee – either a joint committee or a trade union committee or both.

Union members of the joint committee were elected by the trade union assembly in 58.9% of the workplaces and nominated by the trade union bodies in 32.9% of the workplaces.

32.8% of the respondents said that these joint committees were mandated by law, but over one-third (37.2%) said that they did not know if this was the case or not.

Concerning the frequency of joint committee meetings in those workplaces where they existed, it must be pointed out that nearly 30% of the respondents did not know, and that 2.9% said that the committee does not meet even once a year (perhaps it meets on an irregular basis). Of the positive replies to this question, 18.9% said that the committee meets 12 times, 14.7% that it meets twice, and 12.2% that it meets 4 times a year.

36.6% of respondents said that the committee is effective (although 37.5% of those who answered this question did not know if the health and safety committee at their workplace was effective or not).

43.2% of the health and safety committees had women representatives and 42.2% did not (14.6% of the respondents did not know). In those workplaces where there was a health and safety committee – either a joint trade union and management committee or a trade union committee – and in which all workers were women, 12.5% of the respondents said that they did not know if there were women representatives in the committee or not. Presumably, this may be because there is sometimes a health and safety committee for a group of undertakings, in which case it may well be that women are not represented on the committee. Otherwise the proportion of women employees at a workplace and the existence of women representatives in the committees were positively correlated.

Figure 33. Workplaces where worker representatives had certain rights related to occupational health and safety

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 in most workplaces, worker representatives had all of those participation rights listed in the questionnaire (See figure 33). According to the respondents, worker representatives had the right to inspect the workplace for hazards in 92.9% of the workplaces surveyed, to receive health and safety training during working hours in 92%, to stop dangerous work on behalf of workers in 89.5%, to call in a government inspector in 89.4%, to carry out their health and safety duties during working hours in 87.3%, to give health and safety training during working hours in 84.6%, to investigate accidents in 83.8%, and to participate in government inspections in 67.1%.

Figure 34. 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 93.2% of the workplaces, workers (as opposed to worker representatives) had the right to refuse dangerous work. This figure goes down to 80% for workplaces in the agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing industry and in the pulp, paper, paper products and printing industry.

Trade unions’ rights to receive information from management and to consult with management were widespread, at around 90% of cases for issues concerning occupational safety and health, although these were less common for environmental issues (See figure 34). Participation in joint decision-making was considerably less widespread, taking place in 72.6% of workplaces in health and safety issues, and in only 47.9% as concerning environmental issues.

Figure 35. Respondents by the number of weekly hours they spent on average on health and safety duties

8. Time spent on health and safety duties

Only 46.8% of the respondents gave some figure when they were asked the average number of hours they spend each week on health and safety duties. 8.8% said that they spend no time at all (0 hours). Of those respondents who were worker representatives, 17.6% said that they spend no time on health and safety duties, but this was also true of 1.7% of respondents who were health and safety representatives. The proportion of those who did not spend any time on health and safety duties, was high in the energy, electricity, gas and water industries (55%), health (50%), research and development (50%), hotel and catering (33.3%) and the textiles, clothing and leather industries (32.4%). This is quite a surprising finding considering that in 84.2% of the workplaces surveyed, the time spent on health and safety activities by the respondents was paid.

Most of those who did spend some time on health and safety duties, spent a maximum of five hours per week (See figure 35).

Figure 36. Workplaces where the respondent’s trade union had certain programmes/policies

9. Trade union policies/programmes

It is crucial that the union health and safety representative at the workplace can rely on his or her 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 revealing to see that only 53.9% of the respondents' unions had a health and safety policy, and 21.1% an environmental policy. Those with an alcohol policy numbered 27%; 19.6% had a smoking policy and 11.8% a drug abuse policy. Concerning technical support for representatives, although still low, it was evident that unions devoted more time and resources to this. 59.1% of the respondents said that their union had a health and safety training programme for representatives, had access to independent experts (51.3%) and access to information resources (45.5%) (See figure 36).

Figure 37. Workplaces where the respondent’s trade union keeps records on occupational injuries, illnesses and workplace exposures

Compared with management (Refer to figure 28), trade unions had far fewer policies and/or programmes related to occupational health and safety and environment. The frequency order of different policies was the same among trade unions and workplace management.

10. Record keeping by trade unions

As discussed earlier, only 3.1% of the respondens said that their trade union keeps health records, but 70% of the respondents said thet 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 29 and 37).

Figure 38. Respondents by the number of years the occupational health and safety records are kept by their trade unions

Only 48.7% of those respondents whose trade union kept at least some records gave some figure on the number of years health and safety records were kept. Of those who knew, 67.6% said that the records were kept for 1-5 years (See figure 38).

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