Health and Safety Inspections in Workplaces: a Review Among Three European Countries

INTRODUCTION: Labor Inspection is a public function of labor administration that ensures the application of labor legislation in the workplace. Its main role is to convince the social partners of the need to observe the law at the workplace and their mutual interest in this regard, through preventive, educational and, where necessary, enforcement measures. AIM: The aim of this paper is to describe the general framework of Health and Safety Inspections in workplaces as well as to identify the role of Labor Inspectors in Czech Republic, in Greece and in Slovak Republic. METHODS: For the purposes of this paper, a literature review was conducted. RESULTS: The review showed that Labor Inspectorates are similarly organized in Czech Republic, in Greece and in Slovak Republic. In all three countries, a Labor Inspector is a civil servant who carries out a civil service. Labor Inspectors monitor the implementation of labor legislation and their main goal is to ensure labor rights and the safety and health of employees. They perform either scheduled or random visits, day or night or during weekends, where they carry out checks on compliance with the relevant legislation and they lay down penalties for any breach. CONCLUSION: This review opens avenues for researchers in collaboration with Labor Inspectors to conduct comparison studies based on the available data in order to draw conclusions on the labor inspection successful practices.