The Government forces outdoor work to be adapted to adverse weather phenomena such as heat, cold and wind
The Council of Ministers has approved this Thursday to modify the regulations on safety and health conditions in the workplace to avoid accidents and deaths when carrying out tasks outdoors when the heat, cold or wind are very intense. “It is a very worrying issue in jobs that involve a high physical load, but not only in sectors such as agriculture or construction, but horizontally in the economy as a whole,” said the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, in the press conference after the extraordinary meeting of the Executive, focused on the drought.
In this way, it will be “mandatory” to adapt working conditions outdoors when there are adverse weather conditions (heat, cold or wind), specifically during the hours of the day in which the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) activates an orange or red notice. As approved by the Council of Ministers, the specific measures for the protection of workers must take into account both the characteristics of the task performed and the characteristics of the worker.
The Ministry of Labor has clarified that the measures to enable said adaptation of working conditions even include the prohibition of carrying out certain tasks during the hours of the day in which adverse meteorological phenomena occur, as well as the reduction or modification of development hours. of the scheduled day. The restrictions affect both jobs that are carried out outdoors and those that are carried out in workplaces that cannot be closed.
The Minister of Agriculture has assured that it is a “horizontal” measure that affects all workers, not only those who carry out tasks with a high physical load and has stressed the new decree establishes “stricter” conditions than the current ones . The initiative represents a modification of Royal Decree 486/1997, of April 14, which establishes the minimum safety and health provisions in the workplace.
During the summer of 2022 alone, between June 1 and August 31, there were more than 4,800 deaths attributable to temperature in Spain, according to estimates from the daily mortality monitoring system of the Carlos III Health Institute.. In July, for example, a 60-year-old street sweeper died in Madrid from heat stroke while cleaning the streets of the Vallecas neighborhood.. For this reason, the Ministry of Labor considers it “urgent” to act to guarantee “effective preventive regulations”, especially in a context in which meteorological changes are increasingly extreme as a result of climate change.
In addition, the Government has advanced to next Monday, May 15, the entry into force of the National Plan for preventive actions against the effects of excess temperatures on health, which will be active until September 15.. As Minister Isabel Rodríguez explained, this plan has been underway in Spain for 19 years and is the result of an agreement in the Public Health Commission, in which the autonomous communities and Aemet also participate.