None of the employees working in the factory is safe from an accident that can lead to minor or serious consequences, even death. Not only representatives of workers' specialties, as is commonly believed, suffer from occupational injuries, but also office workers or persons holding senior positions. That is why the procedure for registering an accident at work should be familiar to the heads of enterprises (both legal entities and individuals) and employees responsible for labor protection. This information will also be required for union members.
Definition of work-related injuries
What is a work accident? The definition is as follows: this is a precedent, as a result of which the employee was injured or otherwise injured in health. An accident to be recognized as an injury at work must occur in the performance of duties in accordance with an employment contract concluded with the employer.
In addition, an accident at work also has the definition: this is an incident as a result of which the worker had to transfer to another workplace, acquire temporary or permanent professional disability, separate statistics are made up of precedents that entailed the death of the insured.
Accidents to be recorded and investigated
In order to formalize the accident as an industrial injury, first we register the accidents at work and clarify the circumstances of what happened. According to the labor legislation (Article 227), the following cases are subject to investigation:
- incidents that happened to workers directly involved in the activities of the enterprise, if the precedent occurred when the employee performed labor duties;
- an accident that caused injuries and injuries (burns, heat stroke, bites, fractures, etc. are taken into account), this also includes the negative consequences of working overtime, as well as on weekends and holidays;
- a case that occurred at the time when the employee was moving to his workplace, and it does not matter how the victim was moved: in his own vehicle or on the official one;
- the previous category also includes those incidents that occurred when an employee gets to the workplace on behalf of the boss, and it does not matter which transport the victim used;
- industrial injuries when the injured employee is sent to the place of work as a shift (shift workers, guides, shift workers);
- injuries and injuries sustained in other situations provided for by labor law.
Occupational Injury Investigation
Upon detection of work-related injuries, the employer is immediately obligated to initiate an investigation of what happened. The procedure for filling out an industrial accident will be discussed in detail below.
To start an investigation, a commission is created that will identify and record violations that have resulted in injury to the injured worker.The composition of the commission for industrial accidents includes the employer, the person who is responsible for labor protection, and union members. The procedure for registering an accident at work provides that the number of members of the commission should be at least three people. In the shortest possible time, such a commission should identify the cause of the accident and find out who is to blame for the incident, with the subsequent inclusion of the names of the perpetrators in the relevant documentation.
The composition of the commission must necessarily receive a medical examination by an expert on the severity of employee injuries. If it turns out that the worker was slightly injured, then an investigation into this situation will take about three days, if the severity is much higher, then up to fifteen days. If necessary, experts, such as forensic experts or photographers, may be involved. The director of the company takes all the costs of finding the cause of the accident.
Own work injury
If it is revealed that the victim was injured through his own fault, experts should establish:
- quality of employee duties;
- the fact of compliance with the safety standards and rules established by the organization;
- degree of guilt of the victim in the incident.
The drawn up acts are transferred to the insurance commission within the next three business days. The procedure for filling out an accident at work remains otherwise the same as in other cases.
Drawing up an accident report
The materials for the investigation of industrial accidents in the form N-1 are being drawn up. An example of filling out the form can be found below in the photo. Based on the results of the investigation, which was conducted by a special commission, they fill out the accident report in the prescribed form N-1. The document is filled in triplicate, one at a time:
- for the victim himself or his relatives;
- the employer;
- insurance commission.
Information to be indicated in the act
The document must contain the necessary data:
- personal data of commission members;
- data from eyewitnesses of the incident and other people associated with the incident;
- a description of the scene and characteristics of the faulty equipment that caused the injury;
- data on the employee who suffered from industrial injuries, with a description of his job responsibilities;
- an indication of whether the injured employee has passed a timely examination of safety knowledge at the workplace;
- circumstances of what happened.
The name of the person responsible for the incident must be entered without fail. The document is signed by all participants in the investigation, there may also be a mark confirming the additional conclusion of the state labor inspectorate.
Other required documents
A compiled and finally approved document is transmitted to the victim or his relatives if the incident led to death. In addition to the drawing up of the act by the commission and experts, the investigation involves the preparation of other papers:
- protocol of inspection of the scene of the incident;
- protocols of surveys of victims in this situation, eyewitnesses and other persons who are relevant to the incident.
Making a light accident
Mild accidents include those that did not cause severe health problems in the victim. This type of investigation and paperwork for a minor accident at work are carried out in the generally accepted manner, that is, like all incidents of this kind. The only difference can be called the fact that in a mild accident, which entailed insignificant health consequences, it is not necessary to involve the state labor inspector, representatives of the authority (both territorial and municipal), as well as the insurance company in the investigation. The investigation and execution of an incident with a mild form of injury has no specific features.
The procedure for filling out an industrial accident step by step
In case of injuries at work, a number of measures must be taken.First, first aid should be organized for the victim, an ambulance should be called up and, if necessary, taken to a medical facility. Secondly, it is necessary to take measures to eliminate an emergency or other emergency and to stop the impact of negative factors on other employees, preserving the situation at the workplace and equipment in the condition they were at the time of the incident before the commission began. It is important that this is only necessary if the current situation does not threaten other employees.
Next, you should prepare and send a request to the medical institution about the severity of the accident, the state of the employee at the time of the incident (the state of alcohol or drug intoxication, if any, is taken into account separately).
The head of the enterprise must issue an order to form a commission to find out the causes of the accident. Then the commission is obliged to take explanatory notes from the employee and eyewitnesses of what happened, to establish the circumstances of what happened. The results of the investigation are made out in the same way as for other industrial accidents.
Multiple casualty accident
There are such cases when not one person was injured, but several. This incident is called a group work accident and involves an investigation based on the severity of the injuries of all employees.
The registration of the results of the investigation of industrial accidents and their accounting are carried out in accordance with article two hundred and thirty of the Labor Code. The principle of compiling documents is the same as for one victim. The differences are as follows:
- when registering several victims, the act N-1 is drawn up in two copies;
- an investigation report is drawn up for each separately;
- the insured persons are given an additional copy of the paper - the act of accident.
The conclusion on the accident shall indicate all the guilty employees who committed violations at the workplace, a description of the degree of guilt of each employee, which is determined by the commission. In addition, the design of a group industrial accident provides for a listing of circumstances and alleged reasons for what happened.
After the results of the clarification of the circumstances of the incident are delivered, an act of accident with several victims is drawn up. Copies of the investigation are printed in duplicate. The document must be secured by the signatures of all members of the commission that conducted the proceedings.
A copy of the act of investigation of the circumstances of the accident, including copies of materials for each injured employee of the enterprise, is given to the employer by the chairman of the commission three days later and then sent to the prosecutor's office. Duplicated copies of the act, along with photocopies of the explanatory materials, are transmitted to the state labor protection inspectorate and the local executive authority.
If the accident caused serious injury or death, the relevant documents are sent to the executive authority, which has the authority to oversee compliance with all labor laws.
Each case of injuries at work, in the prescribed manner, must be registered by the employer (individual or legal entity), which, in accordance with the decision of the commission members, shall record incidents in a special register of compulsory registration of accidents. A sample document can be found in the photo below. All accidents registered at the enterprise (with the employer - legal entity) are included in the reporting form of the statistical monitoring of occupational injuries over the past year, which is approved by the Federal State Statistics Service.The form is sent to the statistical authorities in the prescribed manner.
Disagreement with the results of the investigation
Even with full observance of the procedure for registering industrial accidents provided for by current legislation, controversial situations cannot be ruled out. One of the parties may not agree with the results of the investigation. In this case, it is worth relying on paragraph 231 of the labor legislation. This applies to the option when the employer does not agree with the conclusion recorded in the act, as well as the procedure for the investigation or execution of the case file. The victim or relatives of the victim have the right to disagree with the results if the situation has led to death.
An appeal is carried out by filing an application with the territorial division of the authority, which is authorized to monitor the enforcement of labor law. If the decision of this authority also does not suit one of the parties, then the dissent has the right to apply for the protection of his interests in court.