Special Hazards and Qualifications
5. Qualifications for Jobs involving Special Hazards
This section describes the procedure that is applied in the Companies belonging to the ISASTUR Group to authorise workers to exercise functions associated with hazardous tasks. The awarding of the aforementioned authorisation on the part of the Organisation shall henceforth be called “qualifications”.
The Organisation thus aims to fulfil a twofold objective:
1º) Apply current legislation to the activities it carries out, in particular:
- Spanish Law 31/95 on Occupational Risk Prevention.
- Spanish Law 54/03, amending the regulatory framework of Occupational Risk Prevention.
- Spanish Royal Decree 39/97, approving the Regulations regarding Risk Prevention Services.
- Spanish Royal Decree 1627/97 regarding minimum Health and Safety regulations in construction work.
- Spanish Royal Decree 614/01 regarding minimum Health and Safety Protection regulations for workers against electrical hazards.
- Spanish Royal Decree 1215/97 regarding minimum Health and Safety regulations for workers using work equipment.
- Spanish Royal Decree 2177/04 regarding minimum Health and Safety regulations for the use of work equipment by workers when working at heights.
2º) Ensure that only duly trained and qualified personnel carry out functions associated with especially hazardous tasks
Definition of the necessary concepts to understand the existing types of qualifications:
- Hazardous task: any task which presents risks that are difficult to control or which are serious risks to the Health and Safety of the workers who carry out it out and/or of any worker in the proximity.
- Work at Heights: any work carried out at a difference in elevation of 1.5 metres from the base (floor or protected platform) is considered work at heights or work at different elevations.
- Preventive Resource Figure: the preventive resource figure in the workplace is the title given to the person designated to carry out the functions of monitoring the fulfilment of preventive activities, and who must remain at the work centre for the time in which the situation requires his presence. (Spanish Law 54/2003).
- Scaffolding: dismountable auxiliary structures used in construction work to carry out different jobs. (UNE 76501:1987).
- Access and positioning by means of ropes: access and positioning techniques by means of ropes to carry out temporary work at heights are considered to be applied when techniques are being used to advance by means of ropes and on structures. (Spanish Royal Decree 2177/2004).
- Elevating platform: the name mobile platform for personnel, elevating platform or automotive aerial platform is given to any mobile machine aimed at displacing people to a work position, comprising at least a work platform with service organs, an extendable structure and a chassis. (NTP 634).
- Dumper: the name dumper is given to the range of vehicles aimed at transporting light materials, whose main characteristic consists in a skip or similar that can be tipped to unload or dump its contents. The term dumper is not used here to refer to a heavy tonnage dump truck, but rather to the vehicle that might be called a motorised wheelbarrow that can be tipped, used inside and around building works and which generally has the following characteristics:
- It comprises a skip, an internal combustion engine and a driving position situated over the back wheels and behind the skip.
- The skip has a load capacity of between 500 and 3000 litres.
- The engine has a power rating of between 10 and 16 HP. (NTP 76).
- Tower crane: a slewable jib crane in which the gyrating support of the boom is mounted on the top of a vertical tower, the lower part of which is joined to the base of the crane. (MIE-AEM-2).
- Dismountable tower crane: a tower crane, conceived to be used in building works or other applications, designed to support frequent erecting and dismounting and to be transferred between different sites. (MIE-AEM-2.
