OCCUPATIONAL RISK ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK IN ROMANIA: AN INSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE

Occupational risk assessment is the key element of the national and community approach regarding the provision of safety and health of workers, representing the first step towards safer and healthier jobs and a way to reduce occupational accidents and elimination of occupational illnesses. Although in Romania occupational risk assessment has gradually become a familiar concept for organizing prevention in the workplace, yet it has not benefited so far from a clear and consistent methodological framework to allow the strengthening of the institutional role of the Labour Inspection and increased quality of control and inspection by harmonizing industry-specific regulations and correct and uniform implementation of the measures imposed by the regulatory framework. As a result, there was the urgent need to address the occupational risk assessment also from an institutional perspective, the present paper having as declared goal the identification and structuring the methodological framework components required to enable labour inspectors checking the consistent fulfilment by employers of their legal obligations on occupational risk assessment.