Workplace Rights: Delegates, Disputes, and Safety

Workplace Rights and Responsibilities

Union Delegates and Representation

Besides regulating the election of union delegates in companies employing more than 250 employees, they represent the union branch and are elected by and among members of that union.

Your Rights as a Union Delegate:

1. Access to the same information provided to the committee.
2. Attending committee meetings (with voice but no vote).
3. Being heard by the company before taking collective actions that affect workers.

Understanding Collective Disputes

A collective dispute involves a generic or abstract group of people with a common interest to all of them as a group.

Example: It asks whether a given section of a company is entitled to a transportation bonus or not. This is a collective dispute, as it seeks to resolve the doubt for any worker who currently or in the future works in that section.

Special Process for Collective Disputes

There is a special process for collective disputes (Article 154 of the Labor Procedure Act). The purpose of the special process for collective disputes is one that affects a generic group of workers and deals with the interpretation or application of a law, a Convention, a decision, or a business practice.

Several Procedures for Resolution:

1. Self-Composition: Resolution of the conflict by the affected parties.
2. Court Proceedings: Involving a third party who is not a court. It may be a conciliation, mediation, or arbitration.
   • Conciliation: When the third party is limited to trying to approximate the positions of the parties.
   • Mediation: When the third party proposes concrete solutions, which the parties voluntarily accept.
   • Arbitration: The third party imposes an arbitration award settling a solution. The solution of the arbitrator is binding on both parties.
3. Judicial Procedure: The conflict is resolved by a court.

Employer Responsibilities for Safety Measures

Responsibilities incurred by the employer for not providing safety measures.

Defining Workplace Incidents:

• Accident at Work: Means any bodily injury suffered at the time the employee is working, arising out of running for others.
• Occupational Disease: Work contracted in the activities performed by an employee, established in the relevant table and on the occasion of the substances listed in that table for each occupational disease.

Accidents at work and occupational diseases have greater protection than those undertaken by common causes, including increased Social Security benefits and improved contribution bases.

Preventive Measures and Corporate Responsibility (PRL)

Worker: Entitled to conditions that guarantee life, health, and physical integrity.

Employer: Obligation to take necessary preventive measures and provide the necessary means to ensure that the work is carried out safely, without risks.

Breach of Employer Obligations

The breach of these obligations involves incurring a number of responsibilities:

1. Administrative Responsibility: Incurred in the labor sphere. The employer is sanctioned if a breach of the Law on Prevention of Occupational Risks (L. PRL) is found. This is punished regardless of whether a damaging event has occurred or not, since the infringement is the violation itself.