MISGEP Met with Employers and NGO Executives in Afyonkarahisar to Consult the Mining Industry

Within the scope of MİSGEP, which is carried out by the General Directorate of Occupational Health and Safety (İSGGM) and financed by the European Union and the Republic of Turkey, in order to improve the occupational health and safety conditions in mining workplaces and to raise awareness in this field, “MİSGEP Mining Industry Consultation Meeting” covering 25 provinces in 7 regions of Turkey are continuing in Afyonkarahisar. Afyonkarahisar Deputy Governor Mehmet KEKLİK, General Directorate of Occupational Health and Safety Head of Legislation Affairs İsmail GÜLTEKİN, İŞKUR and Social Security Institution, KOSGEB, Zafer Development Agency, Afyonkarahisar Investment Support Office representatives, mining enterprises serving in Afyonkarahisar region, OSGBs and NGOs and senior executives attended the meeting.

Afyonkarahisar Deputy Governor Mehmet KINIK, who attended the opening session for his speeches, said, “Our Ministry of Labor and Social Security continues its work on occupational health and safety. The sooner the occupational health and safety culture is adapted, the faster a society can develop in many ways and the peace and prosperity in business life will increase accordingly. We attach great importance to this meeting, which aims to raise awareness by employers by closely following such an important issue. I wish the MİSGEP team, especially our General Directorate of Occupational Health and Safety, continued success and wish it a beneficial and auspicious project for our province and all of Turkey.”

İsmail GÜLTEKİN, Head of Legislation Affairs of the General Directorate of Occupational Health and Safety, put forward the general situation regarding workplaces and employers in Afyonkarahisar and occupational health and safety and said, “In order to spread the safety culture among the employees in your workplace, the opinions of the employees should be sought and their participation should be ensured. The top manager of the workplace should adopt this culture and encourage it continuously and actively. This is of primary importance in terms of employees' compliance with the rules. Leadership in the workplace in OHS should be employers. Afyonkarahisar has taken quick steps in this regard. Compared to 2013, Afyonkarahisar ranks 67th among the provinces that showed the best improvement in the rate of fatalities per hundred thousand in 2019."

In the consultation session of the meeting, MISGEP Team Leader Gökhan Güler and Instructor Dr. Hacer KAYHAN, studied examples from the World such as occupational health and safety practices in the mining sector, legal obligations regarding mining and administrative fines, compensation after work accidents, the effect of unionization on OHS, pneumoconiosis; the most common occupational disease in the industry. The cost and benefits of preventing work accidents. During the meeting, the opinions of the participants were taken after each topic.