The government aims to move forward in 2024 with a review of the 14-year-old law on safety and hygiene at work, starting with discussions under a green paper similar to that on the future of work, it was announced Tuesday.
The information was provided to the Lusa office by the Secretary of State for Labour, Miguel Fontes, who on Monday and today represented Portugal at a summit on health and safety at work organized by the Swedish Presidency of the EU under the Strategic Program 2021 -2027, in Stockholm.
In a conversation with Lusa at the end of the meeting, Miguel Fontes explained that “the commitment is to carry out a review of the legislation in 2024, without prejudice to starting this process now, in the context of a Green Paper, so that this becomes a consolidated and holistic review”.
“The law is from 2009 and it is necessary to change some things”, so the government will continue with “a green paper that aims to start a major debate on the future of occupational safety and health to meet the new dimensions”, such as concerns about mental health and the right to disconnect, new ways of organizing work with phenomena such as “burnout”, accidents in some sectors, the minister summed up.
Miguel Fontes compared that this initiative will be similar to the Green Paper on the Future of Work, “which gave rise to the Decent Work Agenda”, with 70 measures to improve working conditions and improve workers’ private, family and professional lives. to combine.
“We will develop the work under this Green Paper until the end of 2023 and prepare a report in January 2024, but during this time we will review the legislation depending on the recommendations and analysis of specialists and launch promotion and awareness campaigns […] that this issue of safety and hygiene at work is not just a legal and bureaucratic obligation or just a ‘checklist’,” he explained.
Another dimension to take into account is that of fatal accidents at work, given the high incidence in Portugal of 2.72 per 100,000 workers, above the European average.
“I will not resign myself to this fatal accident and we will become even more demanding in the sectors where the accident rate is higher, such as civil construction, construction sites, the agricultural and extractive sectors, linked to mines and quarries, and industry in general” , insisted Miguel Fontes, highlighting the “high priority” of the management to focus the Health and Safety Authority on prevention and inspection.
During this first European summit on this subject, an analysis of the progress of the European Commission’s strategic framework for health and safety at work 2021-2027 was on the table.
Topics covered include mental health in working life, the role of social partners, the vision-zero approach to work-related deaths, the effects of heatwaves and climate change on occupational safety and health, and national occupational safety and health strategies. work.
Source: DN
