Agreement for Safety in Construction

OHS training and prevention Agreement for Safety in Construction Accident rate OHS and subcontractors #Murowana Kariera Strategy objectives for the years 2016-2020
GRI:

For many years, Budimex has been a signatory of the “Agreement for Safety in Construction”, designed to promote appropriate attitudes in terms of OHS in the construction industry. This is the biggest initiative of this kind. Within the Agreement established in 2010, 13 largest companies from the construction industry cooperate with each other to develop as good solutions as possible within the scope of OHS, e.g. uniform document specimens, model of confirming professional qualifications of temporary employees or the periodical training programme.

The BIOZ plan is one of the effects of this cooperation. Meetings of the Agreement's Steering Committees gather presidents of the associated construction companies. In 2018, they dealt, among others, with fatal accidents, which took place in the last year. According to the Central Statistical Office data, the construction sector is on the 8th place among the industries in which accidents at work occur, although year by year their number is decreasing, there is still much to be done in this area.

As the signatory of the Agreement, we engage in many initiatives, for example we support two "small" Agreements at Regional Labour Inspectorates in Szczecin and Białystok, where smaller construction companies are associated. In addition, we take part in initiatives where the law and new standards of health and safety protection are created. In 2018, the director of the OHS, Fire and Environmental Protection was appointed to the Occupational Health and Safety Team of the "BUDOWLANI" Trade Union – an opinion-forming and advisory body. As the project leader on behalf of the Agreement, we participated in works on the new regulation on occupational safety at transport with use of tower cranes. In this respect, we worked closely with the Tower Crane Operators Association and with the Budowlani Trade Union. As a result, the regulation was amended according to our proposals. As the signatory of the Agreement, we also participated in works on the description of qualifications in the construction industry, including those concerning employees performing particularly hazardous works, team coordinators and occupational safety management advisers.

One of key projects of the Agreement is the free training for workers of small and medium-sized companies, implemented in cooperation with the Social Insurance Institution. For five years, another joint initiative of the signatories of this Agreement has been the Safety Week, which another edition took place on 14-20 May 2018. During these couple of days, training sessions, equipment presentations are carried out on hundreds of construction sites to promote the safety culture with the participation of the Fire Brigade and the Police. Meetings with representatives of the National Labour Inspectorate are also held. The last year's fifth edition had the following slogan: "Safety pays off. To everybody!" and it was to emphasise the fact that when it came to safety, it was not important what company we represented and that safe construction is also profitable for investors.