Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2009, published 99th ILC session (2010)

Radiation Protection Convention, 1960 (No. 115) - Paraguay (Ratification: 1967)

Article 14 of the Convention. Alternative employment or other measures offered for maintaining income where continued assignment to work involving exposure is medically inadvisable. The Committee refers to paragraph 32 of its 1992 general observation under the Convention, which states that every effort must be made to provide the workers concerned with suitable alternative employment or to maintain their income through social security measures or otherwise where continued assignment to work involving exposure to ionizing radiation is found to be medically inadvisable. In the light of the above indications, the Committee reiterates its request to the Government to consider taking appropriate measures to ensure that no worker shall be employed or shall continue to be employed in work by reason of which the worker could be the subject of exposure to ionizing radiation contrary to medical advice and that for such workers, every effort is made to provide them with suitable alternative employment or to offer them other means to maintain their income and requests the Government to keep it informed in this respect.

Part V of the report form. Application in practice. The Committee notes that the report refers to two matters relating to application. Firstly, the report indicates that there are some problems regarding compliance with the Convention in some regions of Paraguay, specifically in the interior of the country, where there are few support services for developing a quality assurance programme. For example, the Government refers to the problem of obtaining a certificate of calibration for ionizing radiation equipment located in remote areas, since the country has very few companies which are authorized to provide this service and these are located in the capital, and consequently installations in the most remote places are on a waiting list. This poses problems of compliance with the Convention. Secondly, the Government indicates the lack of a safety culture for workers subjected to exposure since there is no compensation in the occupational safety sphere. The Committee notes that the Government requests assistance from the Office in its report to strengthen the safety culture by means of national and regional training courses for workers subjected to exposure. The Committee agrees that it is vitally important to strengthen a safety and health culture and accordingly draws the Government’s attention to paragraph 306 of its General Survey of 2009 on occupational safety and health, in which the Committee considered it imperative that all the parties cooperate in developing and enhancing measures for social protection and healthy and safe working conditions, and considered that it is equally important for all parties to cooperate in promoting a preventative safety and health culture as advocated in the Promotional Framework for Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 2006 (No. 187), and Recommendation No. 197, and for which Convention No. 155, its Protocol of 2002 and Recommendation No. 164 have laid the foundation. The Committee hopes that the Government can avail itself of technical assistance from the Office in order to strengthen a culture of prevention. The Committee also requests the Government to continue to supply information on the application of the Convention in practice, the number of workers protected by the Convention, and the number and nature of infringements reported.