Any company or work center with 50 or more employees is obligated to establish a HEALTH AND SAFETY COMMITTEE.

This committee is a joint and collegiate participatory body whose function is the regular and periodic consultation of the company on matters of risk prevention.

It is formed with an equal number of members from each side (labor and employer), by the A) prevention delegates and B) the employer and/or their representatives.

Union delegates and the technical managers of prevention in the company participate in the meetings with a voice but without a vote, provided they are not among those previously mentioned.

Las reuniones del comité se celebran cada tres meses y siempre que lo requiera cualquiera de sus representaciones. El propio comité establece sus normas de funcionamiento.

Las empresas con varios centros de trabajo que cuenten con comités de seguridad y salud pueden pactar con sus trabajadores la creación de un comité intercentros, cuyas funciones serán las que se determinen en el acuerdo correspondiente.

Cuando en un centro de trabajo coincidan varias empresas desarrollando actividades simultáneamente, los comités de seguridad y salud de las distintas compañías, o en su defecto, los empresarios sin comité junto con los delegados de prevención, pueden acordar la celebración de reuniones conjuntas u otras medidas de coordinación. Esto será necesario cuando, debido a los riesgos presentes en el centro, sea preciso evaluar la efectividad de los mecanismos de coordinación existentes o actualizarlos.

1. The Health and Safety Committee will have the following competencies:

a) To participate in the development, implementation, and evaluation of the company's risk prevention plans and programs. To this end, the choice of the company's organizational modality and, where applicable, the management carried out by specialized entities with which the company has arranged to carry out preventive activities will be debated within the committee before their implementation and in relation to their impact on risk prevention; projects regarding planning, work organization, and the introduction of new technologies; the organization and development of protection and prevention activities referred to in Art. 16 of this Law; and the project and organization of training in preventive matters. 

b) To promote initiatives on methods and procedures for the effective prevention of risks, proposing to the company the improvement of conditions or the correction of existing deficiencies.

2. In the exercise of its competencies, the Health and Safety Committee will be empowered to: 

a) Directly know the situation regarding risk prevention in the work center, carrying out such visits as it deems appropriate. 

b) Be aware of as many documents and reports relating to working conditions as are necessary for the fulfillment of its functions, as well as those originating from the activity of the prevention service, where applicable. 

c) Know and analyze the harm caused to the health or physical integrity of the workers, in order to assess its causes and propose appropriate preventive measures. d) Know and report on the annual memory and programming of prevention services.

3. In order to comply with the provisions of this Law regarding collaboration between companies in cases of simultaneous development of activities in the same work center, joint meetings of the Health and Safety Committees or, alternatively, of the Prevention Delegates and employers of companies that lack such Committees, or other coordinated action measures may be agreed upon.

Prevention delegates are the workers' representatives with specific functions in matters of occupational risk prevention, and they are designated by and from among the personnel representatives (unitary and union) according to the following scale:

• Up to 30 workers: the prevention delegate must be the personnel delegate.

• From 31 to 49: the prevention delegate is elected by and from among the personnel delegates.

• From 50 to 100 workers: 2 prevention delegates.

• From 101 to 500 workers: 3 prevention delegates.

• From 501 to 1,000 workers: 4 prevention delegates.

• From 1,001 to 2,000 workers: 5 prevention delegates.

• From 2,001 to 3,000 workers: 6 prevention delegates.

• From 3,001 to 4,000 workers: 7 prevention delegates.

• From 4,001 onwards: 8 prevention delegates.

When the workforce reaches 50 workers, a health and safety committee must be established. If no other mechanism is agreed upon, the criteria for calculating the number of representatives based on the workforce are as follows: 

a) Employees with fixed-term contracts longer than one year are counted as permanent workers.

b)Those with contracts of up to one year are counted based on the number of days worked in the year prior to the designation. Every 200 days worked, or fraction thereof, counts as one additional worker.

The LPRL (Law on Prevention of Occupational Risks) offers limited regulation on the duration of the mandate, termination, causes, and other aspects related to prevention delegates. However, given that these delegates are representatives of the workers, it is logical to apply the same rules to them regarding the duration of the mandate, revocation, and filling of vacancies.

Collective bargaining can establish different designation systems, provided that the competence to do so rests with the workers' representatives or the employees themselves.

Likewise, through collective bargaining or through framework or specific agreements, it is possible to arrange for their functions to be assumed by bodies created in the agreement or in said agreements. These bodies may exercise, as established in the agreement, general competencies over all work centers included in their scope of application.

In work centers that lack workers' representatives because there are no workers with sufficient seniority to be electors or eligible in the elections for personnel representatives, the workers may elect by majority a worker to exercise the competencies of the Prevention Delegate, who will have the powers, guarantees, and obligations of professional secrecy of such Delegates. Their action will cease at the moment the necessary seniority requirements are met to hold the election of personnel representatives, being extended for the time essential for the effective holding of the election.