The new challenges in matters of Safety and Health at Work are framed in the effort to achieve excellence in operations with efficiency and safety. In this orientation we find the new technical standard generated by INPSASEL and published in the Official Gazette 42,712 of September 12, 2023, repealing Technical Standard 01-2008, which maintains the objective of creating criteria, objectives and actions to identify, prevent and control dangerous processes present in the work environment to prevent work accidents and/or occupational diseases, creating safe work environments for staff, clients, visitors, suppliers, among others.

Participation of Workers and SSL Committee

To this end, the document emphasizes the leading participation of workers and the SSL Committee, where the task of documenting, reviewing, validating and generating control records remains under the responsibility of the Occupational Health and Safety Service (SSST) with the support of the SSL Committee and obviously the logistics and economic facilities of the employers.

Parameters of the Occupational Health and Safety Program

The technical standard establishes an order in which the development of the Occupational Health and Safety Program (PSST) must be worked on and documented following the following parameters:

1. Design the Occupational Health and Safety Policy, review and approve annually
2. Develop and implement a specific Occupational Health and Safety Program appropriate to your work processes.
3. The Occupational Health and Safety Service must present the Occupational Health and Safety Program for approval, in an assembly with the participation of workers (50% +1 at least) and the SSL Committee.
4. The Occupational Health and Safety Program must be submitted to the Occupational Health and Safety Committee for consideration. And it must be submitted to INPSASEL for approval and registration with tariff payments in monetary rates reflected in petros, with a series of requirements for registration documents and solvencies of government agencies to process its review and approval.

Obstacles and Limitations in Implementation

The structure of prevention remains the same, based on the identification of dangerous processes and the definition of prevention measures recommended in the previous technical standard, a particular issue that becomes difficult in the day-to-day complex management of SSL and the versatility of activities and processes that create the electric service crisis, fuel shortages, thefts and mainly inquisitorial inspections that can generate very large fines, among other things.

As always, being a partial mitigation, companies are given unrealistic periods of time for the processes, 30 continuous days to carry out and document the process, review, approve and present to INPSASEL as contemplated in the publication in the Gazette, so the work entities, according to the document they had until October 13, 2023 to carry out the adaptation and request registration with the INPSASEL, something that could not be specified because the official formats that according to the standard must be issued by the executing agency have not yet been completed. are not available, nor is the website functioning adequately to support the new administrative procedures.

For all of the above, professionals in the area must continue to develop SSL management as closely as possible to the laws and regulations and, as formal adjustments are developed, adapt to them; In this way “surviving” becomes the goal to achieve.