Labour Inspection Authority

Even if an ordinary oil industry worker seldom or never meets PSA representatives during a work year offshore, the contact between PSA s employees and union and health and safety representatives is tight. The Labour Inspection Authority, union representatives, platform chiefs and others active in safety work regularly meet PSA representatives in safety conferences and different arenas of tripartite cooperation onshore. This is very different from the U.S. continental shelf, where regulatory representatives are very visible on installations but seldom or never meet elected representatives of oil industry workers. 

In sum, the leeway for discretion among labour safety inspectors in choosing compliance strategies is broader than that for chemical inspectors. However, both groups of inspectors use methods that aim at promoting respect for and trust in the inspection authority, and they try to adopt situation-specific compliance strategies that are based on soft persuasion and negotiating methods. 

The data used in this research are obtained from Romanian Labour Inspection, they are real data that shows the reality in the field. The authors use recent and actual data from 2011-2013. In the last years, the number of work accidents occurred in Romania fluctuated shghtly from year to year, the peak being in 2008, with 5,110 cases, while in 2013 the authorities registered 3,627 cases. 

The task of monitoring compliance with chemicals legislation should be carried out by a relatively small number of special authorities. It is often appropriate to make use of existing inspectorates to the extent possible, provided they have the capability, capacity and specific expertise and methodology needed. Normally, traditional labour inspectors or environmental inspectors do not have the skills required for a chemicals inspection of primary suppliers. Regardless of the choice of inspectorates to supervise the various actors, appropriate statutes should ensure that enterprises do not run the risk of being checked by more than one inspectorate in relation to compliance with specific chemicals regulations. The responsibilities of inspectorates must be clearly separated. 

According to the senior civil servant of the Ministry of Social Affairs d H lth interviewed, The district offices of the labour protection inspection are responsible for the enforcing the limit values. The inspectors seldom study the compliance with the OELs as a separate issue om other issues. I do not remember a case here [in which] the sole excess of an OEL would have been the[exclusive] reason for enforcement measures by the authority. The air concentration values in excess of the OELs are usually used as evidence of failure of the safety programme of the anployer . 

Joy Oh has degrees in medical biology and chemical technology. He is a policy co-ordinator with the Ministry of Social Affairs in the Netherlands. This ministry is responsible for the laws, regulations and policy with respect to safety and health of workers. Part of the ministry is the Labour Inspectorate. Apart from making policy the ministry is also involved with the development of codes, standards and support tools with respect to auditing and inspection of major hazard installations and safety management systems. Joy. Oh is a member of the Commission of Competent Authorities established under the Seveso II directive. This committee acts as an advisory committee for the EU Commission. 

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