2024-03-29 09:30:11
The number of occupational accidents in the country is increasing. Last year, 440 incidents were recorded in the registers of the Executive Agency (IA) “Main Labor Inspectorate”, and in 65 of them workers lost their lives. Ekaterina Asenova, executive director of the institution, told journalists in Burgas.
“There are employers who deliberately do not provide safe working conditions. There are also cases in which workers deliberately do not comply with the necessary safety standards. An example is a fatal accident from the capital in recent days, in which a worker died while dismantling equipment. This case defies all logic, as all specialists know the basic rules of disassembly. In this case, they were simply not respected,” said Asenova.
She added that there is an insufficient number of inspectors in the country compared to the data for enterprises in our country. “There are over 250,000 micro and small enterprises in Bulgaria. The big ones are 5,300. The jobs are 2,300,000. There is no way our inspectors can be everywhere. We need prevention and an environment of intolerance among people so that when bad examples are seen, both the companies and the workers themselves signal,” the executive director of the IA “General Directorate of Labor Inspection” also pointed out. According to her, last year the institution received over 8,000 reports. In over 95 percent of them, it concerns unpaid wages, benefits and funds for overtime work. Only 5 percent of the reports are about the lack of safe working conditions.
“Often, workers do not realize that by making a compromise, they are risking their lives in the workplace. Conducting safety briefings is neglected. In most cases, they are conducted formally,” said Asenova.
Every second person who died in an occupational accident in Bulgaria worked without an employment contract
In fatal workplace accidents, inspectors of the General Labor Inspectorate often find that the deceased did not sign employment contracts. Most often, such cases are reported in the construction sector, said ch. Inspector Alexander Borisov from the executive agency. He pointed out that some of the labor accidents are not reported to the services. Most of the 440 incidents registered last year were related to falling from a height, writes BTA. The next most common accidents are: entrapment by heavy objects, accidents when working with electricity, falling heavy objects and being buried by a landslide.