The implementation of the project titled “Compulsory insurance system of industrial accidents and occupational diseases. Monitoring of the existing situation” is carried on by the Citizens’ Labor Rights Protection League with the financial support of the Council of State Support to NGOs under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
It is intended to ensure fair and favorable labor conditions for workers in the labor market, as well as to study the current situation as regard to compulsory insurance of those workers from industrial accidents and occupational diseases, and to develop a relevant report and recommendations within the project.
The Citizens’ Labor Rights Protection League has studied the measures taken to minimize industrial accidents and occupational diseases, their implications, problems and factors creating those problems based on a special methodology and the application of a variety of monitoring tools, and developed a report on the outcomes of the monitoring in April to July 2016.
The report contains recommendations on the Analysis of the legislation, Practice of application of the legislation and Formulation of a policy.
As a result of the monitoring, it was revealed that there had been achieved significant progress within 6 years of the application of legislation on compulsory insurance from industrial accidents and occupational diseases. Nevertheless, there are still serious problems remaining in this area. Having a glance at the formal labor market indicators, we can see that the number of the insured was 1,067,600 persons in 2015. However, the number of employed people was 4 million 556 persons according to the official statistics.
Thus, the number of employed people who were not insured actually made 3,488,400 persons.
The formal labor market indicators are not so satisfactory, as well. 28.6% of people working under labor contracts have no compulsory insurance from industrial accidents and occupational diseases.
If we consider the number of workers with labor contracts roughly as 1.5 million, it means that 900 thousand of them work in the public sector, while 600 thousand in the private sector. The labor contracts of the majority of those 600 thousand workers were signed on the basis of dual accounting, i.e. sometimes there is a difference between the real wages and the wages indicated in the labor contracts by several times.
3 millions of employed people are categorized as:
- Those performing work or services under civil and legal contracts;
- Non-formal labor market actors;
- Owners of land shares and their able-bodied family members
However, it can be inferred from the analysis carried out by the Citizens’ Labor Rights Protection League during the previous years that the effectiveness of the application of compulsory insurance system of industrial accidents and occupational diseases is on the rise. The insurance coverage of industrial accidents and occupational diseases made 2,429,300.00 manat in 2015.
According to the official statistics, the recorded number of persons subject to industrial accidents reached 161 persons in 2015. Out of them, 111 persons received injuries of varying severity, while 50 persons died in accidents.
As in previous years, the indicators of occupational diseases were not disclosed by the Ministry of Health in 2015.
CLRPL has issued recommendations upon the outcomes of the monitoring. The report and recommendations will be presented to the stakeholders.
