News

At the address www.porozumieniedlabezpieczenstwa.pl a website was launched on August 14 for the Agreement for Safety in the Construction Industry. It is addressed to construction companies, persons professionally dealing with occupational Health and Safety issues, journalists interested in OHS problems as well as all persons who want to extend their knowledge in that field.

The website contain information on the Agreement for Safety in the Construction Industry, its main objectives, aims and areas of operation as well as an extensive database on OHS in the construction industry.

'We want to reach via our website all firms, institutions and organisations operating in the construction industry,' says Mr. Piotr Turkowski, Coordinator of the Agreement. 'At the address www.porozumieniedlabezpieczenstwa.pl they will find information on the basic OHS rules and procedures and personal and collective protection equipment. We will also publish there examples of good practices from all the firms - signatories to the Agreement. We strongly recommend all the visitors to use those examples.'

Subcontractors cooperating with the firms forming the Agreement will find there all the OHS information they need together with the Signatories' requirements in force on their construction sites, among others a unified OHS enclosure to subcontracts. The website for the Agreement will also contain press information on the activities under the Agreement.

'We do hope that the website will also help us to promote safe practices on construction sites in Poland,' adds Piotr Turkowski. 'Each year there are approximately 120 fatal accidents on Polish construction sites - which means that a man dies every 3 days. The main reason of that is that construction workers are not qualified, they do not observe Ohs procedures and that the protection system is faulty. Every second fatal accident victim on a construction site is an employee whose work experience does not exceed three months. We want to change it together.'