I. Over time, in labor law, there has been a wide range of regulations regarding the taking of measures by the employer to protect the life, health and safety of the employee, who provides his work in the sphere of power and influence of the employer, subject to potential hazard situations that are not always able to affect.
Particularly :
The provision of article 662 of the Civil Code stipulates that the employer must regulate the matters related to work and its place, as well as those related to accommodation, facilities and machinery or tools, in order to protect his life and health. employee.
According to the provision of article 32 par. A lit. a of Law 1568/1985 , the employer is obliged to take every necessary measure, in order to protect the employees and the third parties present at the workplaces, from any danger that may threaten their health or physical integrity.
According to the provisions of article 7 par. 1, 5 and 6 of P.D. 17/1996 , the employer is obliged to ensure the safety and health of employees in all aspects of work, as well as third parties, to take appropriate measures and to ensure that they adapt to changing circumstances, to supervise the correct their application etc.
Finally, with Law 3850/2010, repeats the above general employer obligation to take protection measures to ensure the health and safety of employees and third parties, defines the obligation of employment in the companies of safety technician and occupational physician (who assists in the adoption and implementation of measures) and provides obligation of the employee to apply the rules of health and safety that are indicated to him and to take care, depending on his abilities, for the safety and health of himself and the people affected by his work, e.g. using properly the machines, tools, means of transport he handles, etc., as well as the personal protective equipment provided to him, reporting to the employer, the safety technician or the occupational physician dangerous situations or deficiencies in the protection systems, etc.
II. Today, under the shadow (and fear) of the coronavirus and in order to deal with it more effectively, taking into account the emerging needs and impending dangers, they were enacted, with the P.N.P. 11/3/2020 (Government Gazette A 55 / 11.3.2020) and its interpretative circular 12339/404 / 12.3.2020 , specific measures both in terms of the organization of time and place of work, as well as in terms of prevention for protection health and safety of workers. Specifically, it was defined:
A) the ability monomer enforcement, by the employer , the on working distance (which is, under normal circumstances, be agreed between the parties) who can now, by resolution, to determine that the work performed by the employee, at the place of work provided by the individual contract, will be carried out by the system of distance work, if this is possible, so that the employee can continue to provide his work, without requiring his physical presence at the place of work and
(B) the obligation of the employer to accept, as soon as he becomes aware of the fact, the abstention, from their work duties, of the employees, who fall into the case study of the symptoms themselves or their relatives and, according to the instructions of EODY they must stay at home, for precautionary reasons.
The above applies mutatis mutandis to workers belonging to vulnerable groups, as they are specified, each time, by the instructions of the EODY, whose health status may be endangered due to the coronavirus pandemic, while removal was recommended accordingly. , from work, and pregnant working women, due to the potential risk to themselves and to the pregnant fetus.
It is pointed out that, during the stay of the above employees in their home, the employer is obliged to pay them all their salaries, unless the company suspends its activity, in whole or in part, due to an order from a public authority, to deal with of coronavirus transmission.
III. In the context of the above provisions, taking into account the obligation of the employer to ensure the life and health of his staff at work, especially in the current period when the risk to the health of citizens is a given and the adoption of measures imperative for to reduce the threat of spreading the virus, the following are indicated:
(a) the employer is obliged to provide his staff with personal protective equipment (masks, gloves, etc.), to provide instructions on their proper use and to supervise it, and the employee is obliged to use them, in accordance with the instructions of the employer;
(b) the employer is obliged to configure the workplace in such a way as to ensure the safe performance of the employee's duties, such as by placing partitions in workplaces where there is an overcrowding of workers (eg telephone exchanges) or in places where the an employee comes into contact with a large number of citizens (eg drivers) uncontrollably or serves a large number of citizens, especially high-risk groups (eg pharmacists).
The above result can be achieved with the reorganization of workplaces, in order to achieve a smaller number of employees per square meter or a smaller number of served citizens, as already defined by the controlled entry of supermarkets, public services, shops .
(c) the employer, in the case of an employee who has traveled to an area where increased cases of the virus have been detected, may require him, following a relevant opinion or order of a doctor and while his business continues to operate normally, to abstain from work; in order to protect the other employees from the risk of transmission of the virus, obliged to pay his salary, an obligation that ceases to exist, only after the cessation of the operation of the company, by order of the Authority and
d) the employer may not subject the employee to heat measurement himself, in order to determine whether he is a carrier of the virus, without the will of the latter. This can be done only with the consent of the employee and only by a doctor (worker), who will indicate, depending on the results of the examination and the measures to be taken.
IN CONCLUSION
The employer bears the general obligation of care for the protection of the health and safety of the employee as to the conditions of provision of his work, as well as the observance of the special legislation, in the cases where it exists, as in the present case. In other words, he is obliged to faithfully comply with his statutory obligations and is not released from his relevant responsibility, even if the employee does not comply with his respective obligations.
Violation of the above obligations by the employer first of all gives the employee the right to work, abstaining from the performance of his duties, until the employer takes the prescribed health and safety measures.
In the event that the above-mentioned improper fulfillment by the employer of his respective obligations results in damage to the body or health of the employee, is due to the fault of himself or the persons added by him and is connected, causally, with The adverse effect on the employee is a tort, for which the employee is entitled to full compensation, which covers all his positive and negative damage, as well as financial satisfaction to repair his moral damage.
- Keeping a TA book certified by the Labor Inspectorate
- Occupational risk assessment study
- Planning and posting an escape plan (ISO 23601 P / D 15/2014 - Government Gazette 314
