Know our right to safety and health at work

Temporary disability is the central focus of the USO’s Occupational Safety and Health Day campaign. Health and its recovery and the mechanisms and tools available to us when we are on vacation are our rights

On the World Day for Safety and Health at Work, April 28, we condemn that during the year 2022, there were two fatal accidents every day, 826 people died due to an accident at work, workers with names and surnames. Scandalous figures are neither making headlines nor starring in political debate this election year.

These terrible data on deaths at work are even more alarming if we take into account that their number is increasing from year to year. in 2022, up 17.2% over the previous year. The upward trend in accident rate extends to the total number of accidents. Thus, 2022 leaves us with 3,278 accidents per day, a total of 1,196,425 accidents, up 10.4% from 2021.

prevent “paper”; Underinvestment breaches. Risky business subcontracting for prevention services … These are some of the factors that, at the USO, we have been condemning for years as major factors in this increase in occupational accidents that require urgent measures to stop them. You can’t agree that working or going to and from work is more dangerous every day.

That is why, in the USO, we continue to defend the character of prevention delegates, who are, on some occasions, the only figure that guarantees compliance with the law and whose work of denunciation is necessary as the only alternative to compel companies and public administrations to act with respect to occupational hazards.

We also call for more means and investment to strengthen the labor inspectorate so that it can do its job, force companies to comply with the law, avoid occupational risks, and protect workers from this bleeding that takes so many lives. Suffering and disease cause.

Situations that are considered absenteeism are actually workers’ rights

After the difficult years of the pandemic and the recovery of employment numbers, absenteeism is returning to the media and employer discussion. A pejorative term referring to a time when a worker is absent from his/her job, whether it is justified or not.

From the USO we want, first and foremost, to clarify what situations constitute absenteeism so that we can evaluate the information we receive regarding them in the most valid and factual way possible. It counts as absenteeism:

• Temporary disability (accident at work, occupational disease, co-morbidity or accident outside work and risk of pregnancy).
• lactation period.
• Licenses and permits that are legally recognized as workers’ rights.
• Maternity or paternity leave.
• Labor disputes, such as strikes.
• Assist in training procedures.
• Absence without excuse.

With such a wide range of rights considered as absences, it is only natural that absenteeism task forces and joint associations would report absenteeism to have such large percentages, and that it be used to call into question the right to recover when you are sick or have an accident. Let’s not forget that until the repeal of Article 52. d) in 2020, excused absences were punished with dismissal.

At the USO, we want to highlight that, from the list of positions classified as absenteeism, nearly all are duly justified and recognized and upheld as rights of art workers. 37 of ET and developed in collective agreements.

The exception is found in “unexcused absences”, which is considered a fault according to Art. 58 from ET and its evolution in collective agreements.

The disability is temporary. Your rights do not

USO, on the occasion of the World Day for Safety and Health at Work, we have chosen temporary disability to be the focus of this year’s campaign. Because health and recovery and the mechanisms and tools we have when we are temporarily disabled are rights of workers and workers and we must know them so that we can use them when we need them. Hence our motto: “Disability is temporary. Your rights are not.”

From the USO we claim that IT is an essential condition from the point of view of its ultimate goal: restoring health. We believe that both management and the level of economic coverage and assistance for people who may find themselves in this situation can be improved in many aspects.

In terms of management, in use, we continue to demand the amendment of RD 1299/2006, which contains the Catalog of Occupational Diseases. Of all these illnesses, we find none related to altered mental health, whose possible source of labor is ignored.

We consider it great nonsense that there is a preventive specialty responsible for identifying and combating psychosocial risks and then the health consequences of these risks cannot be framed because they are not classified as an occupational disease.

IT is right for those who are experiencing a change in their health and need recovery

At the USO we demand that workers stop decriminalization and demand IT as a right for those who have experienced some change in their health as an essential period of recovery. Clarify that no person (employed or not) is exempt from suffering from illness or accident throughout their life, and, of course, that such accidents are not voluntarily chosen by those who suffer from them.

In terms of the level of coverage, at the USO, we’re advocating for there to be more and more collective agreements that think of economic improvements as additions to benefits workers receive as they go through IT periods. Our health declines, but the expenses to be met while TI continues, far from decreasing, can even be increased by having to contend with some kind of treatment or medication or ordering some services which would not be necessary in a healthy state.

As denounced by the USO in the Stop Ley de Mutuas campaign, both the Royal Decree on Information Technology and the Joint Associations Act are designed to benefit government and corporations. The main goal is not to improve the health of workers by making improvements in prevention, but exclusively to save costs in social security by reducing the length of sick leave, managing shared IT from day one and shifting a large part of its costs onto the national health system by not recognizing most diseases and accidents It is related to work.

We continue to stress that this legislative reform was a sorely missed opportunity by not including occupational health-related measures that are truly important, such as updating lists of occupational diseases or improvements in detection and reporting. We therefore ask that both criteria be reviewed.

At USO we will continue to stand up for workers’ rights. When we go through a situation of temporary disability, this situation is temporary, but the rights of workers and workers are not.