‘More permanent contracts leads to safer working conditions’

Accidents in the workplace are more common among employees with short contracts or temporary employment agreements than with employees with a permanent contract. The stronger the relationship between employer and employee, the safer the working conditions, the Labor Inspectorate concludes in its annual report.

With permanent contracts, the employer feels more responsible for his employees. “A long-term and sturdy employment relationship also brings a greater financial obligation,” says the highest boss of the Labor Inspectorate, Inspector-General Rits de Boer. Employers then invest more in safety in the workplace, for example by giving more instructions and more supervision.

The other way around, employees also feel more involved in the work when they are employed for a long time. For example, they often dare to report unsafe situations. “Do they take mutually a little good for each other or is the relationship a flat exchange of ‘hands’ for money?” Writes the inspection in the annual report.

Last year, more than 3200 people who had had an accident at work were reported to the inspection, 52 of them did not survive that accident.

Relatively speaking, most of the accidents were relatively speaking. Multi -year investigation by the inspection shows that relatively many of these victims are temporary workers. For example, it concerns accidents with poor quality tools, employees who fall or accidents because there is too little supervision.

The inspection thinks that the total number of accidents is a lot higher. It is estimated that 50 to 70 percent of the work accidents are not reported. Here too, the inspection expects the same connection: “Exactly if the employer has no direct and long -term responsibility for employees, the consciousness or the willingness to report is expected to be lower.”

Many of the temporary workers are labor migrants. They often do unskilled, low -paid work of short duration. In addition, they often work in sectors where relatively many accidents already occur. “Earlier we have calculated that the risk can be twice as great for temporary workers,” says De Boer.

The Labor Inspectorate also concludes that language and culture differences can also stand in the way of understanding instructions or warnings. The dependence that some migrants have of their employers can also prevent them from ringing the bell about unsafe working conditions.

The Labor Inspectorate also calls it “not surprising” that some employers lack the awareness of his or her responsibilities. That is because everyone can become an employer, no training is required for that.