Spanish Occupational Health and Safety Act: Key Principles

Spanish Occupational Health and Safety Act

The Spanish Constitution mandates that public authorities establish principles to regulate and ensure the safety and health of workers within the company. The current Health and Safety at Work Act was published in 1995, with the primary aim of creating a working environment conducive to worker safety.

Core Concepts

• Occupational Health: The state in which a person develops their work functions without it negatively affecting their health.
• Working Conditions: Factors that influence the safety and health of workers, including:

A) Business Environment

Buildings, premises, installations, products, machinery, tools, and work vehicles.

B) Work Environment

Different levels of presence, concentration, or intensity of agents:

• Physical: Noise
• Chemical: Gases
• Biological: Bacteria

C) Production Process

The degree of use of the above agents in the work process, which can cause injuries and illnesses.

Job Characteristics

Factors related to the organization of the company, the specific job performed, and the degree of exposure to agents. Working conditions affect the company, plant, work equipment, materials, organizational scheme, and the process of production or execution of tasks.

Occupational Hazard Factors

These include physical, chemical, and biological agents, as well as:

• The management and work organization.
• The worker's personal characteristics.

Occupational Injury and Prevention

When a risk materializes, damage occurs; therefore, if we eliminate the risk, the damage disappears. Public authorities are required to establish measures to prevent work injuries, defined as any illness or injury that workers may suffer as a result of their work.

Types of Work-Related Damage

• Occupational Disease: Deterioration of worker health resulting from continued exposure to adverse conditions caused by the environment or how work is organized.
• Accident: Defined by Social Security as any injury suffered by the worker in connection with or resulting from work. There are three types:
  • Industrial accident resulting in personal injury.
  • Work accident resulting in property damage.
  • Work accident resulting in no harm.