| The general obligation to ensure the safety and health of workers is structured today in Spain, on the figure of the so-called Prevention services.; The issue around which the debate tour is the determination of the criteria that must manage organizational modalities of prevention covered by European Community legislation. That is, the famous Article 7 of the Framework Directive on the prevention of risk management imposes hierarchical organizational modalities for preventive appointment of employees of the company. This will materialize two positions: (1) On a hand, several European states argue that the Prevention Management "outsources" external specialized entities. (2) On another hand, the European Commission maintains the position that it is essential to integrate the management of prevention in the own activity of the company, which means assuming prevention internally and not "subcontracted." In this thesis we support the second position. Beyond the legal considerations underlying this position, we understand that this is what leads to a higher level of practical implementation of the Prevention Management (PM), and therefore better results for companies.; Since the establishment of a measuring instrument on the degree of implementation of the PM practices and their application to a sample of workplaces the metal sector of the industry of the province of Guipuzcoa (Spain), is a statistical analysis that demonstrates our thesis. It was subsequently undertaken a validation of the results applying to construct a broader sample.; Thus this research is a contribution to the knowledge of the implementation of the PM practices and their relation to the integration of prevention in the very activity of the company. In any case it must be emphasized as a new element in the controversy that developed at European level on how to undertake preventive management, it has an analytic analysis which reinforces the positions held by the European Commission. |
