Slovenia is the only EU Member State where there is no register of occupational diseases. For more than 15 years, there has been no system for verifying and reporting occupational diseases. The Union of Free Trade Unions of Slovenia (ZSSS) has attempted to raise awareness among the public, the government and parliament of the difficulties faced by workers with occupational diseases but with little success. ZSSS demands that the government should introduce a special compulsory insurance scheme for health and safety at work, and should designate a relevant expert body for the verification of occupational diseases.
Slovenia is the only EU Member State that has yet to establish a register of occupational diseases. For more than 15 years, no verification or reporting of occupational diseases has taken place (SI0511302F, SI0511301F). Eurostat has warned Slovenia on several occasions that it is now the only new Member State without any established structure for monitoring and verifying the occurrence of occupational diseases.
Each Member State has been requested to inform the European Commission, not later than 31 December 2006, of the measures taken or envisaged in response to the Recommendation of 19 September 2003 concerning the European schedule of occupational diseases (COM (2003) 3297 final). However, Slovenia will be unable to report any real improvement in this field because no database or register of occupational diseases has been established to date.
Trade union action
The Union of Free Trade Unions of Slovenia (Zveza svobodnih sindikatov Slovenije, ZSSS) (SI0210102F) has frequently highlighted the difficulties faced by workers with occupational diseases but has not seen any major changes take place (SI0505301N). At the request of ZSSS, the problem was discussed by the Economic and Social Council of Slovenia (Ekonomsko socialni svet Slovenije, ESSS) (SI0207103F), the Council for Safety and Health at Work, an advisory body of the government, and more recently by the Commission of the National Assembly for Petitions, Human Rights and Equal Opportunities, a working body of the parliament.
On 10 December 2004, International Human Rights Day, ZSSS organised a protest rally in front of the parliament building to draw the attention of politicians to the fact that workers cannot exercise the rights to which they are entitled if they suffer from a verified occupational disease. ZSSS argues that this is a violation of human rights.
Health and safety regulations
Executive Secretary of ZSSS, Lucka Bohm, who is responsible for issues of health and safety at work, explained that an old register of occupational diseases did exist up until 1990. The old method of registering occupational diseases was then abolished and was replaced by a more up-to-date system. However, this coincided with the collapse of the old health insurance system and with a crisis of the occupational health and safety system. Although the new Health Insurance Institute of Slovenia (Zavod za zdravstveno zavarovanje Slovenije, ZZZS) was founded on 1 March 1992, the abolished register of occupational diseases was not replaced by a new system.
The situation began to change in 1998 when Slovenia became a candidate for EU membership. The EU discovered that health and safety at work is the field in which Slovenia was least prepared for harmonisation with EU law. As a result, a new Law on Safety and Health at Work was adopted in Slovenia in 1999. Because of EU requirements, Slovenian workers finally began to see modern regulations come into play; however, a new register of occupational disease has not yet been established.
Union demands
ZSSS claims that preventing occupational diseases requires the adoption of appropriate legislation regarding the identification and verification of occupational diseases, the creation of a register of occupational diseases and the launching of a number of other measures. Without a register, there is no empirical basis for preparing preventive measures and assessing their results. However, they also insist that the fact that workers cannot exercise their rights to which they are entitled if they have a verified occupational disease be urgently addressed.
Special compulsory insurance scheme
The ZSSS demands that the government introduce a special compulsory insurance scheme for health and safety at work, through which the identification of occupational diseases should be financed. They believe that this scheme should be public, separate from the compulsory health and disability insurance, and financed by employers’ contributions. The main reason that occupational diseases are not registered is that employers have to pay for the identification of such diseases. Moreover, it is not in the interest of employers that occupational diseases are discovered and documented as they fear that they will have to pay damages, and associated costs to workers.
Expert body to verify occupational diseases
The ZSSS demands that only one expert body for the whole of Slovenia should verify occupational diseases: this would guarantee that equal criteria are applied in all cases. The responsibility of identifying and verifying occupational diseases is apparently assigned to disability commissions, which are expert bodies of the Pension and Disability Insurance Authority of Slovenia (Zavod za pokojninsko in invalidsko zavarovanje Slovenije, ZPIZ). However, the regulations setting out the functioning of these commissions do not authorise them to identify and verify occupational diseases: therefore, the commissions refuse to perform these tasks.
Views of employers
At the ESSS session held on 1 April 2005, all employer organisations agreed in principle that the regulation of occupational diseases is highly problematic and that nothing has been done to solve the problem in the last few years.
Commentary
Another complicating factor is that cooperation between the experts from the Ministry of Health (Ministrstvo za zdravje, MZ) and the Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs (Ministrstvo za delo, družino in socialne zadeve, MDDSZ) has traditionally been limited, as it is not clear where the responsibility for occupational diseases lies.
Štefan Skledar, Institute of Macroeconomic Analysis and Development (IMAD)