AKEL MP and C.C. member Giorgos Koukoumas statement on AKEL initiative in Parliament to protect workers forced by employers to stand continuously at work

 

28 March

AKEL’s initiative on the phenomenon of the employer’s practice of forcing workers to stand continuously throughout the working day, is proceeding to take the next step with the submission of two Draft Bills to the Parliament.

Throughout the previous period after our initiative was made public, dozens of workers wrote online about their workplace experiences. The truth is that thousands of workers in our country are forced to work by standing the whole time: in bakeries, supermarkets, shops, hotel lobbies, factories. With workers being overworked, they return home with unbearable back, leg and joint pains, while over time, more serious health consequences accumulate, from rheumatism to musculoskeletal disorders.

The Ministry of Labour, in early February in response to a parliamentary question AKEL tabled, stated that few complaints were received. This does not mean, of course, that the practice does not exist, but that job insecurity (and employer pressure) does not allow for any complaints to be made by workers. That is precisely why we need drastic legislation to be approved and drastically enforced.

The two Draft Bills submitted by AKEL last week in Parliament call for the introduction of an obligation for the employer to organise the time and place of work in a way that avoids prolonged and uninterrupted standing of workers.

Workers are not robots. And those employers who do not realise this must be forced to realise it.