DVR-DUVRI VS CORONAVIRUS

The Employer has the obligation to evaluate ALL RISKS.

It is the responsibility of all workers to protect themselves and others.

These are the two fundamental pillars of health and safety protection.

This does not mean harmful alarmism, but it is real pragmatism.

Does risk assessment need to be rewritten after Covid-19?

The full-blown contagion of the new virus in Italy, in fact, requires companies to update the document risk assessment (DVR) due to the presence of the new biological risk, as well as the supply of personal protective equipment (masks). 

It falls within the obligations of risk assessment also those interferential?

What could be the interference?

How do I manage staff who have to go on business trips?

How do I approach business relationships?

How do I manage meetings with clients?

To manage the forced absences of workers (in Codogno the mayor closed bars, schools, clubs and shops), however, the company can resort to a period of layoffs for "force majeure events". 

The main critical issue they face employers and consultants is the work safety, an aspect of particular importance given that, pursuant to the Consolidated Law on Safety (Legislative Decree no. 81/2008), the responsibility falls exclusively on the employer.

Il coronavirus represents a new biological risk which requires the employer to protect workers. 

In collaboration with the competent doctortherefore, you must first proceed to update the DVR and DUVRI documents risk assessment; therefore it must identify prevention measures, including the provision of DPI (personal safety devices); must provide adequate training to first aid workers and to the workers; and so on. 

Among measures to be taken certainly include those indicated by ministry of health in note no. 1141/2020, that means: 

wash your hands frequently; pay attention to the hygiene of surfaces; avoid close and protracted contracts with people with flu-like symptoms; do not go to the emergency room, hospital or doctor in case of suspected contagion, but wait for the emergency health services. 

The second critical issue to address is the stop to activities. 

A stop that can come from an autonomous decision by the company or workers (welcoming the "invitations" not to leave the house, for example) or by order of the authorities. 

In the first case, the absence is not attributable to the workers; therefore it must be paid by the company that decided to lower the shutters. In the second case it is the opposite: the absence is attributable to the worker who decided to stay at home for fear of contagion; therefore, if he does not justify it in another way (holidays, leave, etc.) he is not entitled to remuneration for the absence which is unjustified, also punishable from a disciplinary point of view. 

In the third case, since the stop is imposed from above (this is the case of the municipality of Codogno which closed bars, clubs, offices and schools), the lack of work performance is not attributable to the company or even to the worker. Therefore the company is not required to pay for absences and the absences are not attributable to the workers (from a disciplinary point of view). 

Both lose: the company due to lack of production, the workers due to lack of pay. In these cases, however, recourse to the CIG is permitted on the basis of art. 8 of ministerial decree n. 95442/16. 

The CIG, however, is available to employees with at least three months' seniority in the companies receiving the redundancy fund. 

And the other workers? What about other companies? 

For them, the general principle of impossibility remains which frees the parties: the worker from the obligation to work and the employer from the obligation to pay. 

However, the collective agreement applied in the company can come to the rescue, possibly (many do) contemplating the possibility for the worker to benefit from paid leave in the event of exceptional events. 

The general principle also operates in the public sector (where there is no CIG). 

As represented on other occasions by the Aran (snow emergency): 

the public administration does not owe salaries to those who do not show up at the office and the workers are not subject to disciplinary action. 

However, in order to avoid "loss" to the worker, collective bargaining generally provides for the possibility of taking advantage of paid leave or recovering service not provided. 

Self-employed workers, like professionals, have no obligations and tasks to implement to deal with the virus emergency, as they are practically responsible for themselves. 

Special case concerns the notaries who, according to a rule that is over a century old, have no way to defend themselves: they risk dismissal, in fact, if they abandon their headquarters (art. 142 of law no. 89/1913).

source italiaoggi NUMBER 044   PAGE. 29  DEL  22/02/2020   

https://www.italiaoggi.it/news/valutazione-rischi-da-riscrivere-dopo-il-covid-19-2426804

Thanks to Sergio for sending the important article.