THE ANDEAN COUNCIL OF FOREIGN MINISTERS,

       HAVING SEEN: Articles 1, 3, 16, 30 and 51 of the text of the Cartagena Agreement codified through Decision 406; the Treaty establishing the Andean Community Court of Justice; Decision 503 of the Andean Council of Foreign Ministers; Commission Decisions 439, 441 and 510; the Regulations of the Andean Council of Foreign Ministers approved through Decision 407; and the Regulations of the Andean Community Commission approved through Decisions 471 and 508;

       WHEREAS: Article 1 of the Cartagena Agreement establishes that one of the basic objectives of that Agreement is to improve the living standards of the subregion’s inhabitants; 

       In order to accomplish the objectives of articles 3 and 51 of the Cartagena Agreement, provision has been made to gradually harmonize the Member Countries’ economic and social policies and align their legislation on pertinent issues;

       The improvement in the quality of life of the subregion’s inhabitants is closely tied in with their obtaining decent work;

       One of the essential elements for attaining decent work is to guarantee the protection of safety and health at work;

       In that connection, it is the responsibility of Member Countries to take the necessary steps to improve health and safety conditions at each workplace in the subregion and to enhance the protection of the workers’ physical and mental integrity;

       Safety and health at work is one of the central themes of the Simón Rodríguez Convention on socio-labor integration, which provides for the tripartite and equal participation of the Advisory Council of Labor Ministers and the Andean Business and Labor Advisory Councils;

       The Andean Labor Advisory Council, in Opinion 007 of June 2000, expressed to the Andean Council of Foreign Ministers and the Andean Community General Secretariat, its full backing for the tripartite treatment of the subject, with a view to establishing general criteria for an appropriate preventive policy, as well as adopting concrete measures to establish safety and health procedures at work in the subregion;

       It is advisable to approve an instrument establishing the basic provisions on safety and health at work that will serve as a basis for the gradual and progressive harmonization of laws and regulations governing the particular labor situation in each Member Country.  This instrument should, at the same time, encourage Member Countries to adopt guidelines on management systems for safety and health at work and establish a national system of safety and health at work; 

       The General Secretariat has put forward Proposal 97/Rev. 1 approving the Andean Instrument on Safety and Health at Work;

       To adopt the following "Andean Instrument on Safety and Health at Work"

a)    Member Country: Each of the countries that make up the Andean Community.

b)    Worker: Any person who performs gainful work for wages, including independent or freelance workers and workers in public institutions. 

c)    Health: A fundamental right that involves not only the absence of infections or diseases, but also of elements and factors directly related to the workplace environment that are negative to the worker’s physical or mental state.

d)     Preventive measures: Steps taken to avoid or reduce work risks that are aimed at protecting workers’ health from damaging working conditions resulting from, related to or emerging in the course of their working activities, and whose implementation is the employers’ obligation and duty.  

e)    Work risk: Probability that exposure to a dangerous environmental element in the workplace will produce an injury or a disease. 

f)     High-risk activities, processes, operations or work: Those that are highly likely to be the direct cause of damage to the workers’ health during or as a result of the work they do.   Each Member Country’s national legislation shall stipulate the list of activities that are considered high-risk.

g)     Workplace: Any place or area where workers remain to do their work and to which they must go because of that work.

h)    Working conditions and environment: The elements, agents or factors that are heavily involved in creating risks to worker safety and health.  Specifically included in this definition are:

       i.     the general characteristics of the premises, facilities, equipment, products and other supplies to be found at the workplace;

       ii.    the nature of the physical, chemical and biological agents present at the workplace and their corresponding strengths, concentrations or volumes;

       iii.   the procedures for using the agents cited in the previous item that may create risks for the workers; and

       iv.    the organization and classification of the work, including ergonomic and psychosocial elements. 

i)     Personal protection gear: Specific equipment that should be properly used by workers to protect them from one or several risks that could threaten their safety or health at work. 

j)     Management system for safety and health at work: The series of interrelated or interactive elements whose purpose is to establish a safety and health at work policy and objectives, and the mechanisms and actions that are needed to attain those objectives.  These are closely tied in with the concept of entrepreneurial social responsibility for creating an awareness of the importance of giving workers good working conditions, thereby improving their quality of life while making the companies more competitive in the market. 

k)    National system of safety and health at work: Group of coordinated agents and factors in the country and within each state’s legal system that contribute to preventing work risks and promoting better working conditions.  These include preparation of rules, inspections, training, promotion and support, registration of information, health care and rehabilitation and insurance, health surveillance and control, worker participation, consultation and contribution, with the participation of social spokespersons, to defining, developing and periodically evaluating steps to guarantee worker safety and health and, in the enterprises, to improving production processes, thereby promoting the competitiveness of these companies in the market.  

l)     Health service at work: Series of company divisions with essentially preventive functions that are responsible for advising the employer, the workers and their representatives in the enterprise about:  i) the necessary requirements for establishing and maintaining a safe and healthy working environment conducive to optimum physical and mental health at work; and ii) the adjustment of the work to the workers´ capacity, bearing in mind their physical and mental health. 

m)     Occupational disease: A disease that is caught at a result of exposure to risk elements inherent to the working activity. 

n)    Work accident: Any sudden event that occurs as a result of or during work and that produces an organic injury or functional disturbance in or the invalidity or death of a worker.  A work accident is also that which occurs while carrying out work orders or during the performance of work under the employer’s authority, even if outside the workplace or not during working hours.  Each country’s individual legislation shall define what is to be considered an accident during the workers’ travel from their place of residence to their workplace, and back again.

o)     Dangerous processes, activities, operations, equipment or products: Physical, chemical, biological, ergonomic or mechanical elements, factors or agents that are present in the working process and that, according to the definitions and paramters established by national legislation, pose a threat to the safety and health of the workers who carry them out or use them. 

p)    Safety and Health at Work Committee: This is a bipartite body in which the two parties, the representatives of the employer and of the workers, enjoy equal rights.  It has the authority and obligations established by national law and practice to hold regular and periodic consultations concerning the company’s performance in preventing risks. 

q)    Work incident: Occurrence during the course of work or in relation to the work, in which the person affected does not suffer bodily injury or requires only first aid. 

r)     Danger: Threat of an accident or damage to health.

s)     Occupational Health: Branch of Public Health whose purpose is to promote and maintain the best physical, mental and social health of workers in all occupations; prevent any damage to health caused by working conditions and risk elements; and adjust the work to the workers’ aptitudes and capacities.

t)     Health conditions: The group of objective physiological, psychological and sociocultural variables that determine the sociodemographic and morbidity profiles of the working population. 

u)    Risk map: Geographically organized and methodically arranged collection of national and/or subregional information about threats, incidents or activities that are classified as risks to the safe operation of a company or an organization.  

v)     Employer: Any natural or artificial person who employs one or several workers.  .

       To that end, Member Countries should implement or perfect their national systems of health and safety at work by taking action to encourage the State, employers and workers to adopt policies of prevention and participation.

       All Member Countries should list the branches of activity or categories of workers that are excluded pursuant to this article, explaining the reasons for that exclusion and describing the measures that have been taken to ensure that the workers in the excluded branches receive sufficient protection.  They should also report to the Andean Safety and Health at Work Committee and to the Simón Rodríguez Convention any progress that is made toward broadening the application of this Instrument. 

       In order to fulfill that obligation, each Member Country shall prepare, implement and periodically review its national policy for improving safety and health conditions at work, which shall have the following specific aims:

a)    To help bring about and support interinstitutional coordination that will make it possible to properly plan and make appropriate use of the resources and identify occupational health risks in each economic sector;

b)    To identify and bring up to date the most important general or sector problems and to prepare proposed solutions that are in keeping with scientific and technological advances; 

c)    To determine the competent authorities for preventing work risks and to define their scopes of action in order to coordinate their efforts appropriately and thereby avoid conflicts of jurisdiction;

d)    To update, systematically organize and harmonize national provisions on safety and health at work and encourage the adoption of programs to promote health and safety at work, with a view to establishing and/or reinforcing National Technical Standardization Plans on Safety and Health at Work;

e)    To prepare a Risk Map;

f)     To ensure appropriate and timely compliance with the provisions for prevention of work risks by making inspections or using other mechanisms for periodic evaluation, organizing specific inspection, surveillance and control groups for that purpose, endowed with the necessary technical and juridical instruments for their effective exercise;

g)    To establish an epidemiological surveillance system and open a registry of work accidents and occupational diseases to be used for statistical purposes and for the investigation of their causes;

h)    To promote the establishment of an insurance system against occupational risks that would cover the working population;

i)     To advance programs for promoting health and safety at work in order to help create a culture of preventing work risks;

j)     To ensure the fulfillment of promotional and preventive education or training programs for workers on safety and health at work that are tailored to the priority risks to which they may potentially be exposed;

k)    To supervise and certify the training on prevention and promotion of safety and health at work to be administered to professionals and technicians in related careers. The governments shall define and oversee the application of an appropriate human resource training policy for undertaking health promotion and the prevention of risks at work, in keeping with the real needs, without reducing the quality of either the training or the provision of services.  They shall also foster the quality certification of professionals working in this area, which shall be valid in all Member Countries;

l)     To ensure that employers and workers are given advisory assistance on the best way to fulfill their duties and responsibilities with regard to health and safety at work. 

a)    Minimum safety and health levels that working conditions must meet;

b)     Restriction of operations and processes and the use of certain substances and other elements at the workplace entailing exposure to duly proven agents or elements of risk that are harmful to workers’ health.  These restrictions, which shall be determined nationally, should include the establishment of special requirements for their authorization;

c)     Prohibition against operations and processes and the use of substances and other elements at the workplace that are harmful to workers’ health;

d)    Specific working conditions or preventive measures for work that is particularly dangerous;

e)     Establishment of standards or procedures for evaluating the risks to workers’ health and safety by using occupational epidemiological surveillance systems or similar procedures;

f)     Procedures for classifying work accidents and occupational diseases and requirements and procedures for communicating and reporting to the competent authority work-related accidents, incidents, injuries and damage;

g)     Procedures for full rehabilitation, job retraining, reinstatement and reassignment of workers who have been temporarily or permanently disabled due to work accidents and/or occupational diseases;

h)     Procedures for inspection, surveillance and control of safety and health conditions at work;

i)     Methods for organizing, operating and controlling health services in accordance with the unique features of each workplace; and

j)     Procedures for ensuring that employers, after consulting workers and their representatives, take measures in their companies, in keeping with national laws or regulations, to report work accidents, occupational diseases and dangerous incidents.  The competent authority, work inspection service, insurance company or any other institution should be notified: i) immediately after it receives the report of accidents resulting in death; and ii) within the prescribed periods in the case of other work accidents. 

a)    Make certain that the machinery, equipment, substances, products or work supplies pose no danger or risk to workers’ safety and health;

b)    Supply information and training on the installation, proper use and preventive maintenance of machinery and equipment and the proper use of physical, chemical or biological substances, materials, agents and products, to prevent the dangers inherent in them from materializing, together with the necessary information for monitoring the risks;

c)    Conduct studies and research or keep up with the evolution of scientific and technical knowledge that is needed to comply with the stipulations of sections a) and b) of this article;

d)    Translate into the official language, simply and precisely, the instructions, manuals, danger warnings or other precautionary measures described on the equipment and machinery, as well as any other information connected with their products that will make it possible to reduce work risks; and

e)    Ensure that workers are given the information about the machines, equipment, products, substances or work supplies in terms that are readily understandable to them. 

       Enterprises shall accordingly draw up comprehensive risk prevention plans that include at least the following actions:

a)    Drawing up the company policy and making it known to all personnel.  Stipulating the aims, resources, responsible parties and programs in regard to safety and health at work;

b)    Initially and periodically identifying and evaluating the risks through specific occupational epidemiological surveillance or similar systems based on risk maps, in order to properly plan preventive measures;

c)     Combating and controlling risks at their source, in the means of transmission and in the worker, giving priority to collective over individual control.  If the collective preventive measures prove to be insufficient, employers should provide suitable protective clothing and equipment to workers individually, at no cost to them;

d)     Scheduling the progressive replacement as rapidly as possible of dangerous procedures, techniques, means, substances and products by ones that are of little or no risk to the workers;

e)     Designing a strategy to devise and implement preventive measures, including measures associated with working and production methods, that would guarantee more protection of worker safety and health;

f)     Maintaining a system for registration and reporting of work accidents, incidents and occupational diseases and the results of the risk evaluations made and control measures proposed.  All pertinent authorities, employers and workers would have access to this registry;

g)     Investigating and analyzing work accidents, incidents and occupational diseases in order to identify their causes and take remedial and preventive action to avoid the occurrence of similar cases.  The findings would also serve as a source of data to further develop and disseminate the investigation and create new technology;

h)    Informing workers in writing and by any other means about the job risks to which they are exposed and training them to prepare for, minimize and eliminate those risks.  Training sites and schedules shall be arranged by common agreement of the interested parties;

i)     Establishing the necessary mechanisms to guarantee that only workers who have been given proper training have access to high-risk areas;

j)     Appointing a worker safety delegate, a safety and health committee and establishing a health service at work, according to the number of workers involved and the nature of their activities; and

k)     Promoting the adaptation of the work and of the jobs to the workers’ capacity, in the light of their physical and mental health, considering ergonomics and other fields relating to the different psychosocial risks at work.   

       The comprehensive risk prevention plan should be reviewed periodically and updated with the participation of employers and workers and, in any case, whenever the working conditions are changed.

       Medical care, health services at work or similar systems should be guaranteed at workplaces where high-risk activities are carried out or where required by national legislation. 

       The right to preventive health consultations, participation, training, surveillance and control are all part of the workers’ right to adequate safety and health protection at work. 

       Complementary to this, employers shall provide workers and their representatives with the necessary information about the measures that are taken to safeguard their health and safety.  

       Workers have a right to change jobs or tasks for reasons of health, rehabilitation, reinstatement, or retraining. 

a)    To comply with the standards, regulations and instructions of programs of safety and health at work that are implemented in the workplace, together with any instructions that are given them by their direct superiors;

b)    To cooperate in the fulfillment of the employer’s obligations;

c)    To properly use working tools and supplies, as well as the equipment for individual and collective protection;

d)    Not to operate or handle equipment, machinery, tools or other elements unless authorized and, if necessary, trained to do so;

e)    To report to their immediate superiors any work situations that in their judgment may reasonably be expected to pose a threat to workers’ lives or health;

f)     To cooperate and take part in investigating work accidents and occupational diseases when asked to do so by the competent authority or when, in their opinion, information they possess may help to explain the underlying causes;

g)    To comprehensively safeguard their physical and mental health and that of other workers under their orders during their working activities;

h)    To duly report any ailments they may have as a result of the work they are doing or of the working conditions and environment.  Workers should inform the treating physician in detail about the work they do so that the causes or suspected causes of those ailments may be identified;

i)     To undergo any medical examinations ordered by an express provision, as well as comprehensive rehabilitation, and

j)     To participate in bodies with equal representation, training programs and other activities organized by their employer or the competent authority to prevent work risks. 

       That evaluation shall cover the specific risks to the safety, health and development of girls, boys and adolescents. 

       Employers should inform the girls, boys, adolescents and their parents, representatives or persons responsible for them, about the risks their work entails and the measures that have been taken. 

       Such examinations shall be conducted by physicians specialized in occupational health and the results shall be reported to the parents, representatives or persons responsible for the working children or adolescents.

       Each Member Country’s national legislation shall specify the nature of the sanctions to be applied for each violation, considering, among other things, the seriousness of the offense, the number of people affected by it, the seriousness of the injuries or damage produced or that could have been produced by the absence or deficiency of the necessary preventive measure, and whether the case involves a repeated offense. 

a)     Contribute to the application of this Decision and other complementary instruments;