Mission of the State Labour Inspection
The mission of the State Labour Inspection is to effectively enforce the provisions of labour law, including occupational safety and health regulations, by means of effective and targeted inspections and preventive actions aimed at reducing accident risks and respecting labour law.
Tasks and powers
The scope of activity of the State Labour Inspection includes among others:
- supervision and inspection of employers’ compliance with labour law, in particular occupational safety and health rules and regulations, provisions on employment relationship, remuneration and other benefits resulting from the employment relationship, working time, leaves, employee rights related to parenthood, employment of juveniles and persons with disabilities, as well as labour protection initiatives in individual farming,
- inspection of compliance with occupational safety and health regulations when designing processes of construction, reconstruction and modernisation of work establishments, and of machines and other technical equipment and technologies used in these work establishments,
- supervision and inspection of employers’ compliance with occupational safety and health regulations when building and producing machines, equipment and work tools,
- supervision and inspection of employers’ compliance with occupational safety and health regulations when manufacturing products and packaging, the use of which could cause a health and life hazard,
- inspection of products placed on the market, subject to conformity assessment, with regard to their compliance with essential occupational safety and health requirements set forth in separate legislation,
- inspection of compliance with occupational safety and health requirements.
SLI’s inspection and supervisory activities focus on sectors and workplaces with a previously identified inadequate level of labour protection.
The priority of the SLI’s inspection and supervisory activity is to improve the rule of law in employment relationships, in particular to prevent pathological mechanisms, to focus in inspection and surveillance on sectors and specific workplaces with the highest level of occupational risks, and to initiate preventive activities on an ever increasing scale. These priorities are reflected in the SLI multiannual work programmes.
Aside from long-term activities, there are also annual programmes which include:
- problem-oriented inspections enforcing improvement of compliance;
- diagnostic and pilot inspections;
- inspections conducted in the framework of district labour inspectorates’ own tasks.
Problem-oriented inspections are conducted in areas where there is a considerable level of legal violations or where there are problems requiring coordinated, nationwide measures. Diagnostic inspections, on the other hand, involve monitoring of selected labour protection issues, with a view to obtaining data enabling the targeting of inspection and preventive activities in the upcoming years. Depending on the specific topic, diagnostic inspections are carried out by all or selected district labour inspectorates and supervised on a central level.
District labour inspectorates’ own tasks include issues which have not been covered by the centrally coordinated tasks but which are considered by a particular district labour inspectorate to be of significance in the territory of its local competence. The first inspection mainly serves the purpose of evaluation and counselling, especially in newly established companies or those where the business profile has changed. Aside from providing labour law information and advice, labour inspectors also apply statutory measures which vary according to the nature and actual causes of the identified irregularities. The first inspection of an employer is conducted in such a way that the information about the company, obtained by an inspector, helps optimise any further activities of the SLI, including in particular preventive measures.