The role of collective-contractual regulation in ensuring the right of agricultural workers to a safe and healthy working environment

Abstract

The relevance of the study is determined by the need to investigate changes at the international standards level: the inclusion of the right to a safe and healthy working environment in the fundamental principles and rights at work worldwide. This also caused the need for appropriate adjustments to the national legal framework. The second factor of relevance of the study is the novelties of national legislation on collective and contractual regulation of labour and related relations. Analysis of the impact of such changes on the settlement in collective contracts and agreements of the issue of a safe and healthy working environment for people engaged in agriculture, identification of problematic aspects and development of proposals for their overcoming define the purpose of the study. The achievement of this goal was facilitated by the use of a set of methods of scientific knowledge: philosophical (dialectical), general scientific (analysis, synthesis), and special scientific (formal-legal, comparative-legal). As a result of the study conducted, compliance with international standards of changes implemented in Ukrainian legislation regarding the conclusion of collective contracts and agreements was determined. It is proposed to extend the scope of collective agreements to all those who work in agriculture, including members of farms and agricultural cooperatives, to guarantee a safe and healthy working environment and to the work of the most vulnerable categories of workers (women, minors, persons with disabilities). The need to replace the term “labour protection” in Ukrainian legislation with “safety and health of employees at work” is justified since it is more consistent with the object of protection and correlates with international terminology. It is established that the norms of the current industry agreement do not correspond to the needs of the present. It is recommended that the development of the new document reflect in more detail the specific features of measures for the safety and health of employees at work, due to the specific features of production processes in agriculture and the realities of war and post-war times. The results obtained fill the gap in scientific research of the relevant issues, are valuable from the standpoint of the opportunity to apply them in the further reform of legislation on the field of collective-contractual regulation in agriculture, and will also be useful for the preparation of collective agreements of agricultural entities