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The trade unions and the Government have different views and assessments on the evolution of industrial accidents, based on different sources of information. The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs considers that there has been a decline in this phenomenon, whereas the trade unions UGT and CCOO consider that there has been an increase. The trade unions feel that more action must be taken to deal with this situation, and propose that the intervention of official bodies should be increased.
The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales, MTAS) (ES0505208F, ES0502207F, ES0503202N) considers that the evolution of the industrial accident rate has improved. According to the preview of the Journal of Labour Statistics ('Boletín de Estadísticas Laborales', BEL) published by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, which is the statistical source that it uses, the number of fatal industrial accidents has fallen. The number of fatal accidents fell by 8.4% from May to June, and the June figure showed a 6.5% fall in comparison with the previous year. The number of serious accidents fell by 18% from May to June, and the June figure showed a 17% fall in comparison with the previous year. The total number of accidents showed a fall of 2.8% between June 2004 and June 2005. The total number of accidents in June was 90,974, of which 93 were fatal and 981 were serious.
The General Workers’ Confederation (Unión General de Trabajadores, UGT) and the Trade Union Confederation of Workers’ Commissions (Comisiones Obreras, CCOO) have a different interpretation of the situation. Based on a comparison of figures for the first half of 2005 and the first half of 2004 from the National Institute for Safety and Hygiene at Work (Instituto Nacional de Seguridad e Higiene en el Trabajo, INSHT), also belonging to the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, they consider that the number of industrial accidents involving time off has increased by 9.3%, and the number of fatal accidents has increased by 7.5%. According to the UGT, there is a clear disproportion between the official accident figures of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and the number of court cases involving safety at work. Of the 955 fatal accidents recorded, 143 led to trials for industrial manslaughter.
CCOO considers that the figures are 'very poor' and represent a break with the downward trend of the last two years. According to trade union sources, from the coming into force of the Occupational Risk Prevention Law ('Ley de Prevención de Riesgos Laborales'), in 1996, until December 2004 there were 8,110,259 industrial accidents involving time off work (showing a 38% increase), 120,295 serious accidents and 13,349 fatal accidents. By sectors, there were 372,172 in agriculture; 2,213,895 in industry; 1,810,221 in construction and 3,136,243 in services.
The different assessments of the trade unions and the ministry may be due to the systems used to record the figures, but they also disagree over the reasons for the accidents. According to the trade union interpretation, expressed by the UGT, the INSHT states that 50% of the fatal accidents involved workers on temporary contracts; in 93% of the risk assessments the risk that caused the fatal accident was not detected; in 83% of the 7% cases in which the risk was detected, no preventive measures were taken; and in 70% of the cases the victims of the accidents had no preventive training on risks at the workplace. According to trade union sources, the high temporary employment rate (10 of every 11 contracts are temporary) and the transfer of risks to small companies due to the constant increase in subcontracting are the possible reasons. This situation causes over four workers to die in their workplace very day and over 40 to have serious accidents.
A possible reasons for the increase is the failure of companies to comply with the Occupational Risk Prevention Law ('Ley de Prevención de Riesgos Laborales') and the regulations of health and safety at work, aggravated by their feeling of impunity. The UGT calls for the creation of a 'special public prosecution service on health and safety at work'. According to the trade union, in 2004 the General State Public Prosecution Service (Fiscalía General del Estado) already claimed that the employers limited their responsibility to the economic sphere, accepting the risk of accidents as just another production cost. Therefore, they do not take precautionary measures to avoid accidents but merely accept the cost of dealing with those that occur. This situation is also due to the relaxation in the monitoring of working conditions by official bodies.
The trade unions feel that inspections (ES0507102F) must be intensified and coordinated with the Public Prosecutor and the health authorities in order to monitor industrial accidents and ensure compliance with the law. Their aim is a stable, high-quality labour market that minimises accidents caused by precarious employment conditions, in addition to the implementation of the Spanish Health and Safety Strategy ('Estrategia Española de Salud y Seguridad'). They also seek the reinforcement of the legal rights of workers' representatives at the sectoral and regional levels, mainly for workers of SMEs, and joint decision on the choice of external welfare services (Servicio de Prevención Ajeno) and industrial accident mutual insurance societies (Mutua de Accidentes de Trabajo) (ES0503103N). They wish to stimulate the social dialogue ('Diálogo Social') established through the Occupational Risk Prevention Commission ('Mesa de Prevención de Riesgos Laborales'). The trade unions have also asked the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs to initiate a debate on the accreditation and control of external welfare services and to draw up a national regulation and national minimum criteria of application for quality control and standards.
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