The rebound in work-related deaths forces the Junta de Andalucía to combat "paper prevention"

Trapped in a combine harvester in Guadix (Granada), crushed by a machine loaded with lava in Orihuela del Tremedal (Teruel) or victim of heat stroke in Mazarrón (Murcia). These are some of the causes of work-related deaths registered in the last week in Spain, where, on average, more than two people die every day due to work. After two decades of constantly reducing the accident rate figures, in recent years the country has experienced a rebound that increased in 2022 and that pushes the administrations to act.

Last year, 826 fatal occupational accidents were registered in Spain, the highest number since 2010 and 17% more than the previous year. The data for the first half of 2023 show a slight decrease at the national level, although in communities such as Andalusia there has been a new upturn. The region accumulates one in four serious work accidents and one in five fatalities in Spain while the curve is higher.

The data is worrying and has led the Andalusian administration to seal a crash plan together with businessmen and unions, following in the footsteps of other territories such as the Valencian Community, which signed a similar agreement before last April. The Ministry of Employment will invest 2.2 million euros in a series of measures agreed upon in the Social and Economic Pact for the Promotion of Andalusia, the great agreement between the Government of Juanma Moreno and the unions last April. But they also point to a relaxation between employees and employers when considering workplace accidents a problem of the past. to a lack of awareness. The CCOO leader in Andalusia, Nuria López, describes the phenomenon, which tends to occur especially in small companies, as “paper prevention” and “not real”..

The labor lawyer Ramón Dávila, who has handled around a thousand cases related to accidents at work in Andalusia for decades, acknowledges the “excess confidence” both by those responsible and by the staff in recent years. “Sometimes the discipline is relaxed and you can come to think that nothing happens for not putting on the harness,” he summarizes, while pointing out the obvious consequences of temporary and precarious. “A time has come when we believe we are doing things right, but we do them out of inertia and without being aware. There are companies that do what they have to do so that they are not denounced and that's it”, summarizes a person in charge of CCOO.

Since 2018, Andalusia has registered the highest fatal accident figures in the national territory: in that year, 106 people lost their lives at work; in 2019 there were 122; in 2020, during the pandemic and despite mobility restrictions, 120; in the year 2021, 148. “We have to internalize that the preventive culture is not an obligation or an additional burden that we must bear, but rather the authentic shield with which to defend ourselves from some dangers that are real,” said the Minister of Employment, Rocío Blanco, during the presentation of the plan. one of the independents that Juanma Moreno maintained in his government from Ciudadanos.

The document contemplates the preparation of an exhaustive map on the problem in Andalusia: among whom and in which companies the most serious cases occur. The objective is to study in detail where the fatal accidents that have grown the most in recent years occur: falls in work at heights and loss of control of machinery. There are several sectors that concentrate most of the cases: construction, agriculture, work at height or jobs most exposed to high temperatures. For this reason, verification and advisory activities will be reinforced in companies. The actions of authorized personnel will be increased by 20%, while the advisory actions of Alerta Accidentes, the immediate support program for Andalusian companies that register serious accidents, will increase by 40%.

As a novel measure, Employment will activate a mobile information unit that will travel through the eight Andalusian provinces. Specifically, he will visit the most dangerous workplaces, industrial estates and logistics parks, but also SMEs, one of the spaces that cause the most concern, since they do not usually have a union presence.. For this reason, credits will be allocated so that small companies can create prevention projects. The president of the Confederation of Businessmen in Andalusia, Javier González Lara, highlighted the importance of these companies in stopping the rebound. “A large part of the success of the fight against accidents depends on them,” he acknowledged..

For his part, the regional leader of the UGT, Oskar Martín, recalled that this crash plan should recommend a “significant increase” in the body of labor inspectors and sub-inspectors, as well as authorized technicians from the Ministry. “They can monitor compliance with the standard,” he stated during the presentation.