What is the Occupational Safety and Health Act?
The Occupational Safety and Health Act implements the European Framework Directive on Occupational Safety and Health 89/391/EEC into German law. As the name suggests, the law is designed to ensure the protection and health of almost all employees in the context of their employment or work. The full name of the law is "Law on the implementation of occupational safety and health measures to improve the safety and health protection of employees at work", or "ArbSchG" for short. Only a few professional groups are not protected by this law, including domestic workers in private households or employees on seagoing vessels.
Like every law, this one is also published in the Federal Law Gazette (Part 1), known as BGBl. for short.
What does the Occupational Safety and Health Act regulate?
Roughly speaking, the law regulates which conditions must be met in the workplace so that an employee can work safely, accidents and work-related illnesses can be prevented, and working conditions can be designed and assessed according to fixed basic principles. The central element in occupational health and safety is the so-called risk assessment.
The Occupational Safety and Health Act in turn includes a number of occupational safety regulations, orders and other occupational safety laws. One occupational safety regulation is the Workplace Regulation. It regulates the basic requirements for setting up and operating workplaces (89/654/EEC), for non-smoking protection or for setting up work, sanitary and other rooms. The Screen Work Regulation (89/655/EEC), for example, specifies what a screen workstation is and how it should be set up, and the aim of the Load Handling Regulation (90/269/EEC) is to minimize health risks such as back problems when handling loads manually. All regulations and rules have one thing in common: they serve to protect the health of employees and staff.
Duties and rights under occupational health and safety law
In addition to certain regulations regarding workplace furnishings and equipment, there are a number of other obligations for employers. These include occupational health care, first aid and emergency measures, and training so that a job can be carried out without any problems. But employees must also comply with regulations. They have a duty of care towards employees and colleagues and may only use machines, equipment, materials, etc. for their intended purpose.
Furthermore, the Occupational Safety and Health Act regulates which breaks an employee is entitled to and how their duration is to be determined. This includes not only short breaks, but also the time intervals between individual shifts, the so-called rest and recovery times. Holidays are not regulated by the Occupational Safety and Health Act, but by the Federal Holiday Act.
What is the Joint German Occupational Safety and Health Strategy?
The Joint German Occupational Safety Strategy (GDA) is an initiative of the federal government, the states and accident insurers. The GDA was launched primarily to create incentives to ensure compliance with the Occupational Safety Act and to improve the safety and health of employees. Various programs and the optimization of advice and monitoring support employers in this. In addition, one of the alliance's goals is to continuously modernize the German occupational safety system in the face of ever faster changes in the world of work.
What is statutory accident insurance?
If something happens to an employee in the course of their work despite following all the requirements described in the Occupational Safety Act, this can be a case for statutory accident insurance. Statutory accident insurance (GUV) is part of social insurance and is intended to prevent accidents at work or occupational diseases. If an accident at work or an occupational disease does occur, statutory accident insurance will cover medical or occupational rehabilitation services, in certain cases pension payments, wage compensation payments and the like. Incidentally, not only employees are compulsorily insured under GUV, but also kindergarten children, schoolchildren, students and blood donors.
Despite Occupational Safety and Health Act, illnesses at work
Long office hours, sitting in a rigid position and lack of exercise are the causes of widespread work-related illnesses such as back pain and back problems, but also obesity, cardiovascular problems and diabetes. In fact, an occupational health and safety law can do little to help here.
Anyone at risk of this can prevent it by incorporating exercise into their daily office routine. To avoid having to interrupt work to move around at the workplace, we recommend using office chairs that allow intuitive movements while sitting, such as the Swopper and 3Dee active chairs from Aeris. Thanks to the patented 3D technology, movement in all directions is encouraged and one-sided pressure on the intervertebral disc is eliminated. In addition, active sitting strengthens both the abdominal and back muscles. So anyone who is worried that their office chair or standing aid in the production hall is not good for their back should speak to their direct supervisor or employer about this. After all, it is also in a company's interest that employees do not fall ill and thus incur more costs than investing in an active office chair.
