The Ministry of Labor accuses the employers’ associations CEOE and Cepyme for their position at the table where the reform of the law on the prevention of professional risks and the regulation of prevention services is being negotiated. The Secretary of State for Labor, Joaquín Pérez Rey, accuses employers of “not doing their homework” and of “warming up their seats”, in reference to the lack of proposals he sees in business associations, 21 months after the first meeting on this issue. For this reason, Pérez Rey calculates how far the ministry’s patience will go: he says he has asked business representatives to give their opinion before the end of November.
Otherwise, the Ministry will try to reach an agreement with the unions, as usually happens when faced with the clash of positions between Yolanda Díaz’s department and company representatives. From January to September, 547 people died at work, 5% less than last year, but with a significant increase in some sectors such as construction.
“Today we have a new social dialogue table on the prevention of occupational risks. A table that wants to translate into law the strategy for health and safety at work that we have signed with employers, unions and that the Spanish government itself has signed. Once again, employers have not done their homework at that table,” says Pérez Rey in statements provided by his department.
“Once again – continues the number two of the Ministry – we have sat in front of an employers’ association that appears but is absent; an employers’ association that dedicates itself to warming up the chair at the tables of social dialogue. It cannot be. The prevention of professional risks is not a game”.
Pérez Rey indicates that the prevention law is already 30 years old. “You asked us for time and we gave it to you,” says the Secretary of State, before specifying that “between now and the end of November” employers will have to clarify their position “in the face of this drama”, in reference to workplace mortality. Pérez Rey said that this is “an urgent reform that the citizens of this country await without delay; I once again ask employers to dedicate themselves to work.”
(New in development. There will be an extension soon.)
