Meeting of the Council for Work Safety in Construction

      On 22 October 2008, the newly established Chief Labour Inspector’s Council for Work Safety in Construction met at the Chief Labour Inspectorate’s seat. The session, attended by the Head of National Labour Inspectorate Tadeusz Jan Zając, was led by the Council’s chairman – prof. Michał Bołtryk, vice-chancellor of the State Higher Vocational School in Suwałki.

In his speech Tadeusz Jan Zając pointed up the necessity to make changes in the NLI’s inspection and supervisory activities related to construction. It means both the development of new rules of selecting companies for inspection, and changes in the inspection methodology. Labour inspectors’ actions should give an objective picture of the state of compliance with the law in construction enterprises and bring measurable effects.The Chief Labour Inspector stressed that achievement of these objectives will be possible after the labour inspectorate will have developed clear forms of its cooperation with social partners, mainly with trade unions and employers. On one hand, labour inspectors should focus on conducting inspections, and on the other hand – they should provide advice and assistance.

During the meeting, representatives of the Chief Labour Inspectorate presented currently binding rules of supervising and inspecting working conditions on construction sites and problems encountered by labour inspectors while they carry out NLI’s statutory tasks. Moreover, they informed the meeting participants about results of inspections carried out in construction in recent years and discussed the problem of accidents in construction and preventative actions undertaken by the inspectorate in this economic sector.

At the discussion the Council members mentioned the necessity to introduce changes in the system of vocational training for construction workers, because the current system does not teach students proper attitude to work safety. They emphasised deficiencies in construction law, among others caused by the fact that law-making authorities do not take account of suggestions from experts, especially representatives of construction self-government organizations. It results in the situation that nowadays construction engineers often take up duties of construction site managers on a number of sites simultaneously, which can adversely affect work safety. Some speakers raised the issue of preparing investors for implementing construction investments. They are often driven only by the criterion of profit and neglect issues related to safety of conducted works. Another subject mentioned was the necessity to adjust inspection methods to new technologies and to involve designers in matters of work safety.

While summing up the meeting of the Chief Labour Inspector’s Council for Work Safety in Construction, prof. Michał Bołtryk recalled with satisfaction the NLI’s declaration to improve effectiveness of its inspection and supervisory activities in construction companies. The campaign “Safe building”, initiated by the labour inspectorate and targeted at investments connected with organization of UEFA EURO 2012 in our country, should give rise to NLI’s further preventive and inspection activities which would cover other large construction investments.