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According to a report from the CC.OO trade union confederation, during the first five months of 2000 industrial accidents in Spain increased by 14.4% in comparison with the same period of 1999. The accidents mainly involved temporary workers.
In summer 2000, the Trade Union Confederation of Workers' Commissions (Comisiones Obreras, CC.OO) issued a report stating that there had been a 14.4% increase in industrial accidents in the first five months of 2000, compared with the same period in 1999. The number of fatal and serious accidents had, however, decreased by 2.6% and 3.5% respectively.
Since 1996 - when the Law on Prevention of Labour Risks came into force (ES9708216F) - the number of industrial accidents in Spain has increased progressively each year, with an annual rise of 15.3% to the end of the 1999. Spain is the EU country with the highest industrial accident rate (ES9904215F). Extremadura, the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands are the regions in which the accident rate has increased most.
According to the CC.OO report, the main cause of industrial accidents is temporary employment. The relationship between temporary employment and industrial accidents has also been analysed in a recent report by CC.OO's regional organisation in Catalonia (Comisión Obrera Nacional de Cataluña, CONC), according to which the rate of industrial accidents is higher among temporary workers than among permanent workers. Temporary workers represent a third of wage-earners, but in 1998 they suffered 60% of industrial accidents.
The report by CONC finds that 55% of the accidents suffered by temporary workers are among workers hired through temporary work agencies. The organisation's health and safety officers claim that this increase in accidents arises from a failure but temporary work agencies and user companies to meet their legal obligations. It is claimed that the user companies normally fail to meet their obligation to inform the agencies of the risks and dangers of the job, while agencies usually fail to meet their obligation to inform the workers on this issue. According to the CONC report, the higher accident rate among temporary agency workers can also be attributed to other factors such as the type of work (often types of work that are forbidden by law, or that are different from those for which they were hired), the short duration of the contracts (which may be for as little as one day, which makes it difficult to apply the regulations on worker protection), and the lack of monitoring of employee health. To combat this situation, CC.OO planned to carry out a series of mobilisations during September 2000.