Safety representatives

General information

Safety representatives are employee representatives with a special role in relation to health and safety. They are at the heart of everything that goes on in the company, so they are ideally placed to identify problems with working conditions in their specific area and to help to come up with solutions.

Employers are obliged to provide safety representatives with the following documents:

• documents relating to findings, taking into account the existing risks, about the latest state of the art and the findings from the area of labour organization
• the results of measurements relating to dangerous agents and noise as well as other measurements and investigations that are connected with employee protection, and
• records relating to agents and noise.

Employers are obliged to

• inform safety representatives immediately if limits are exceeded and the causes for this and about the measures taken
• inform safety representatives about obligations, prescriptions, permits and official information in the area of employee protection and to listen to the information that results from the protective measures and measures for risk prevention in advance
• to listen to information from safety representatives relating to the risks to safety and health and to protective measures and measures for risk prevention in general and for the individual types of workplaces/areas of responsibility in advance
• to listen to information from safety representatives for employers of external employees about the protective measures and risk prevention measures in general and for the individual types of workplaces/areas of responsibility and relating to measures taken for first aid, firefighting and evacuation in advance.

Enterprises affected

Essentially all establishments, apart from agricultural and forestry establishments, administrative departments and province and municipal schools as well as private households

Competent authority

The locally competent labour inspectorate (Arbeitsinspektion → BMAW)^{German text}

Legal bases

Section 11 of the ArbeitnehmerInnenschutzgesetz (ASchG)

Expert information

Safety representatives ( Arbeitsinspektion → BMAW)^{German text}