What is the certification of production facilities for working conditions and whether it is necessary to conduct it?
Certification is one of the main duties of the employer in favor of each employee. According to paragraph 13, paragraph 2, of Article 182 of the Labor Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the employer is obliged to conduct, with the participation of representatives of employees, periodic, at least once every five years, certification of production facilities for working conditions in accordance with the rules approved by the authorized state labor body. Any citizen working in production has the right to the corresponding condition of the workplace. Therefore, each employer must comply with the requirements of the current legislation when hiring or performing work duties.
Certification of production facilities according to working conditions - the activity of evaluating production facilities (workshops, sites, workplaces, as well as other separate divisions of employers engaged in production activities) in order to determine the state of safety, harmfulness, severity, intensity of work performed on them, occupational health and determine whether the conditions of the production environment meet the standards in the field of safety and labor protection. It is mandatory for all industrial enterprises, each workplace of which must be certified in accordance with the established procedure in the Order of the Minister of Health and Social Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated December 28, 2015 No. 1057.
Certification is not related to the assessment of employees, their professional qualities and success in work. In this case, the conditions of employment are checked, this is done to identify harmful or dangerous factors for human health at a particular place of work in a production facility.
When making the certification status of the production environment and indicates to the employer that the applicable laws and regulations, for example, an employee is obliged to work the appropriate hours, he put such a personal protection order he received occupational diseases, etc. of Course, all this is done for the sake and life of the employee. And the employer should be aware that in accordance with the current legislation that we have more than one year, in the case of professional disease, the employee, the onus is on it to the employer. It is he who subsequently pays the employee for the lost earnings.
In Atyrau region, about twenty percent of employees work in conditions that do not meet sanitary and hygienic requirements. According to the Department of Labor Inspection, to date, certification has been carried out at 137 production facilities in the region, however, despite the certification, the number of offenses in the field of safety and labor protection is growing, there are facts of detection of non-compliance with the requirements of labor legislation in private businesses.
The importance of certification lies in the prevention of accidents and occupational diseases at work, their prevention.
There are several arguments in favor of the relevance of certification of production facilities for working conditions in organizations and enterprises.
Currently, the certification of workplaces is the only mechanism in the Republic of Kazakhstan that provides guarantees for hard work, dangerous and harmful working conditions, in the form of increased wages, additional paid leave, reduced working hours (Articles 69, 89, 105 of the Labor Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan).
The provision of the above guarantees is carried out according to the List of productions, shops, professions and positions, list of heavy works, works with harmful and (or) hazardous working conditions (hereinafter – the List), based on the confirmation results of certification of workplaces in accordance with the order of the Minister of health and social development of the Republic of Kazakhstan from December 28, 2015 No. 1053.
If the employer does not carry out certification on working conditions, as well as on workplaces that are not subject to certification, guarantees are provided in full according to the List.
The main argument for the transition from the List approach of providing guarantees to the approach that takes into account the actual impact on the employee's body of harmful and dangerous factors of the production environment and the labor process should be certification. This is the guarantee for ensuring the constitutional rights of employees to safe working conditions, rest and health protection, consistent with the objectives of labor legislation.
Based on the provisions of the labor legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan, taking into account international standards and recommendations of the International Labor Organization, it is necessary to improve the quality and increase the role of certification of production facilities for working conditions, gradually move to the assessment of occupational risks. The assessment should be independent-equidistant from the opinion of the employer and trade unions, as well as professional-certification should be carried out by specialized organizations that have testing laboratories accredited in accordance with the legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan, posted on the Internet resource of the authorized body.
Certification is not only the identification and description of harmful factors, it is the result of establishing compensation for employees employed in unfavorable working conditions. Also, the certifying organization offers the customer a plan of preventive measures designed to improve the situation at the enterprise. Based on the results of the certification, lists of employees subject to mandatory medical examinations are also prepared.
Certification should become an effective tool for determining the real state of each workplace, should also give the employer and employee information about possible risks and measures to prevent them. On the one hand, on the basis of objective results of certification of workplaces, fair decisions will be made on the establishment of guarantees for work in harmful and dangerous working conditions for a particular employee at a particular workplace.
It should be noted that violation of the requirements of the legislation on certification of workplaces on the state of working conditions, in accordance with the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Republic of Kazakhstan, entails administrative responsibility.
State Labor Inspector of Atyrau region
Baimenov M. E.