January 29, 2009

by VICENÇ NAVARRO

 

In any country in the world, there are people who die from work-related illnesses, ie, they acquire the illness as a result of conditions in their workplace. Not so in Spain. According to official figures no one dies from an occupational disease in Spain. According to statistics, no one died from an occupational disease in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004. It was only in 2005 that three people died due to diseases acquired in their work. This is really amazing!

The causes of this extraordinary fact may be two. One is that here in Spain, working conditions are so great that no one dies due to an occupational disease. The other reason is that there is a huge underreporting of such deaths. And this is what happens. The experts at the Labor Center at the University Pompeu Fabra (UPF), a science center of the Occupational Health more credible in the country, have estimated that given the structure of work in Spain killed no less than about 14,000 men and over 2,000 diseases contracted by women in the workplace. These figures are easy to calculate, since there is a very advanced scientific knowledge about the incidence, prevalence and mortality rates of different diseases would expect to find among the workers according to their type of work and according to their working conditions. In this way, the Labor Center has calculated that there were 9400 deaths from cancer per year of work, over 3600 deaths from cardiovascular disease also work, and just over 1,700 deaths from respiratory diseases also cause labor. Well, none of them appears at the official registry of deaths at work.

This is also the under-registration of occupational diseases, including very serious underreporting has been increasing in recent years. While the workforce has increased from 15 to 17 million in the last six years, the number of serious cases of occupational disease has been reduced, such as registration of 191 in 2000 to 120 in 2005, which is impossible is due to a decrease in occupational disease or decrease its severity. The cause of this situation is also a scandalous underreporting.

 

According to published estimates of the Labor Center at the UPF, the under-reaches 64% of all occupational diseases, the percentage reaches 100% in the most serious diseases like cancer of occupational origin. In fact official figures recognize only 30,000 cases annually of diseases, the vast majority of them mild and low. Actual figures, however, are much greater. An estimated 9% of workers and 13% of workers (a total of 2 million people) suffer from some disease or illness resulting from their work.
After reading this information, the reader will ask: why does this happen? How is it that in Spain there are workers who are sick and dying every day and constantly without registering the causes of their deaths?

To answer those questions, we have to look who benefits and who suffers from this situation. Start with those who benefit. And very first appear Employers Mutual of accidents and occupational diseases, which make everything possible and impossible for such diseases and causes of death are not recognized and registered, thereby avoiding paying the family for death, pension that would apply by law, or pay the costs of caring for such patients to health care institutions that care for patients who have diseases. Mutual reach such extremes with the huge battery of lawyers, professionals called experts, politicians close to them (most right-wing and some left-wing) so that the truth be known and do something about it. The analysis of behavior should be subject to more than one film or television documentary. None has been done. Today these mutual funds are among the most important private money in Spain. Economic and political power is enormous.

Who loses? Hence the list is long. First of all workers and their families. Mutuals do not pay child labor (which is higher than the normal pension of Social Security) to the families, widows or widowers or dependents of workers killed and by their law. The fact that there is such a huge under-saving for Employers Mutual. This saving is the source of their enormous profits, which are based on the sacrifice of the families of the dead. Yet another victim of the underreporting is the National Health Service and the Autonomous Communities that pay for health services such as sick, by law, such health services should be paid by the mutual work. The cost to the CCAA is huge, reaching almost 14% of the total cost of the public health.

Why not do something the central government, which is likely to do something? The answer is the same as the answer to the question of why the state does something about tax evasion to be reaching 82,000 million euros a year? The answer is the enormous economic and political influence of such large economic groups and the wealthy classes of our society. It is what used to be called "power class", of which no one spoke in our country. But I assure you that continues to exist.

Vicente Navarro is Professor of Public Policy at the University Pompeu Fabra