All about occupational safety

Every employer in the Republic of Croatia, regardless of their activity and size, is obliged to organize and implement occupational health and safety.

Occupational health and safety is a system of measures to protect workers and other persons from the harmful effects of work, and it is achieved by performing occupational health and safety activities and applying prescribed, contracted and recognized occupational health and safety rules, as well as the employer's ordered measures and instructions.

The purpose of occupational health and safety is the prevention of occupational injuries, occupational diseases and other work-related diseases, and the systematic improvement of safety and health protection of workers and persons at work.

If occupational safety is not implemented and if preventive measures are not taken, unwanted consequences can arise and thus the business, stability and even survival of every company, especially smaller ones, can be threatened, because the costs that can arise due to injuries at work and inspection fines many times outweigh any investment in prevention and occupational safety.

The concept of occupational safety is associated with the first decades of the industrial revolution, that is, with the period of a little more than 200 years ago. The first security measures and the first forms of insurance at the very beginning of the industrial revolution, i.e. at the end of the 18th century, protected exclusively property, not people. Human life was cheap in the past, and injuries at work, and even loss of life, were then considered the price of progress, a necessary evil. At the time, no one was held accountable for this.

Workplaces began to change for the better at the beginning of the 19th century, when the first trade unions were founded that demanded better working conditions and when the media, which were newspapers at the time, began to write about the inhumane working conditions, especially of children who worked in factories and mills . The first law on occupational safety was passed in Great Britain in 1802, but significant improvements in occupational safety occurred only at the beginning of the 20th century, when compensation to workers in the event of an injury at work became an employer's obligation. Then the life of the worker becomes more and more precious because the interests of the employer and the worker are equalized.

A safer working environment has become a common interest for both. Then various committees and departments for occupational safety in companies began to be established and the first safety engineers were hired. They began to think intensively about the causes of injuries, about the sources of danger and how they can be prevented. Protective devices are installed on machines, fences, handrails, non-slip floors are installed in dangerous places in buildings, and workers are given personal protective equipment - safety belts and protective helmets, as well as instructions for safe work. Advice and best practices from manufacturing are being translated into legislation and an inspection regime, and the working environment is becoming safer.

Today, we live in the safest period in human history, and with the development of society, we have come to the point where occupational safety is no longer understood only as a legal obligation, but also as a moral obligation of every employer. Today, it is not only carried out for economic reasons, but also for humanitarian reasons.

Occupational safety in the Republic of Croatia is regulated by legislation on occupational safety.

The basis is the Constitution, the Labor Act and the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and in addition to them, issues related to occupational safety are regulated by other laws and by-laws.

In addition, the implementation of occupational safety is also bound by the conventions of the International Labor Organization, which the Republic of Croatia has accepted and ratified.

 

The Occupational Safety and Health Act, as well as all by-laws adopted on the basis of it in the Republic of Croatia, aim to prevent occupational injuries and occupational diseases and protect the working environment.

The Law on Occupational Safety determines and regulates the following:

-participants and their rights, obligations and responsibilities related to the protection at work of workers and in the implementation of safety measures at work,

-basic and special rules of occupational safety,

-obligations of the employer in the implementation of occupational safety.

-the obligations and rights of workers, and the rights of workers' commissioners for occupational safety,

-obligations of the authorized or occupational safety expert,

-obligations and responsibilities in the design and execution of works,

-obligations and procedures of education and training in occupational safety,

-legal framework for the work of authorized persons for occupational safety,

-implementation of administrative and inspection supervision