SWAM held the second Cross sector meeting on March 14th 2017. in Podgorica, within the regional project „Increasing capacities and strengthening of the role of the regional CSOs for improvement of the labour conditions and labour dialogue with public institutions“.
The purpose of the meeting was to identify the issues within the area of safety and health at work in Montenegro from the professionals’ and OSH company’s representatives’ point of view, as well as the role of the media in creating preventive culture, when it comes to safety and health at work.
Participants of the meeting were representatives from OSH companies, professionals from various companies, as well as the media.
We expect this to lead to a closer cooperation between SWAM and OSH professionals in Montenegro, an encouragement of the dialogue on the improvement of labour conditions, as well as the raising of common awareness of the importance of professional practice and common activities in the education of employers and employees when it comes to safety and health at work.
During the meeting, the representatives of the OSH companies stated many examples of good practice of safety and health at work on new construction sites in Montenegro, where investors are people from abroad, mostly western Europe. They believe that the arrival of foreign investors have made a huge role in the improvement of the condition of safety and health at work, but that there’s still a lot of work to do.
The participants of the meeting all agreed on the fact that the legal obligations in the area of safety and health at work in Montenegro aren’t applied, which causes injuries at work. The biggest issue, as they mentioned though, is the low level of knowledge in this area, which leads to the final conclusion that a continuous education of both employees and employers is needed in Montenegro.
Just like the previous time, when the meeting was to be organized, the biggest problem was to include the media to actively join the meeting. In most cases, media representatives showed no interest in this topic, nor did they see their role in creating preventive politics when it comes to safety and health at work. Some journalists did show personal interest in some of the topics, but the editors from media organizations where those journalists work didn’t share their interest.
The final conclusion of all the attendees at the meeting was that education at all levels is highly needed when it comes to safety and health at work in Montenegro, and that the education should already be practised in kindergartens and elementary schools, as well as high schools and universities. The competence of the professionals is also being questioned, since the recieving of the licence itself by passing an OSH exam, doesn’t make them professionals in that area without a continious extra education.
The attendees showed interest in attending the cross sector meeting where representatives of public institutions will participate. The reason behing that is, as they state, the often improper implementation of work of ministries and authorized inspections, which leeds to frequent injuries at work.
