Compliance for Companies: Occupational Safety and Health in Peru

Some of the most important obligations regarding occupational safety and health to be met by companies are the following:

• Implement an occupational safety and health management system according to their organizational level, the risks of their activities and the number of employees.
• Ensure that all members of the organization are aware of and value occupational safety and health.
• Define an area of the company in charge of identifying and controlling the hazards of its work activity, and ensure that all workers are aware of it.
• Establish, implement and carry out occupational safety and health management documents, with realistic and measurable objectives.
• Let workers choose the HSE supervisor, in case of having less than 20 collaborators.
• Develop an “Internal Occupational Safety and Health Regulation”, in the case of having 20 or more workers. This regulation must contain at least the OSH objectives and policy, the obligations of those in charge, the safety and health standards in services and operations, and the emergency protocol.
• Make available to the area in charge of occupational safety and health, the necessary resources to comply with preventive measures.

Therefore, Peruvian companies should adopt an OSH (Occupational Safety and Health) Management System approach, in order to create safe and healthy work environments.

It is important to have a plan for the surveillance, prevention and control of Covid-19.

Through the Occupational Safety and Health service, companies must have a “Plan for the surveillance, prevention and control of COVID-19 at work”, which must be approved by the Occupational Safety and Health Committee or by the Occupational Safety and Health supervisor as appropriate for approval within a maximum period of 48 hours.

Likewise, it is not enough to have this plan, but the content established by Ministerial Resolution 239-2020-MINSA and the specifications established by the sector to which each company corresponds must have been prepared and contemplated.

The Ministerial Resolution 377-2020-MINSA has established that the review and “subsequent control” of the content of this Plan and its formal adjustment to the regulations that govern it will be carried out by the National Center for Occupational Health and Environmental Protection for Health (Censopas).

If this subsequent control reveals fraud or falsehood in the declaration, information or documentation submitted by the company, the automatic approval of the Plan will be declared void and a fine of between S/ 21,500.00 and S/ 43,000.00 could be imposed.