Overview
- The Council of Ministers, which cleared the draft Tuesday, began the first step to update the 1995 safety law and 1997 prevention rules before sending a final text to Parliament.
- Employers would need return‑to‑work plans after long health absences and must monitor workers’ physical and mental health with medical checks at hiring, on a schedule, and after extended leave.
- The reform widens what counts as a workplace hazard to include psychosocial stress, digital exposure, extreme weather and natural disasters, and risks tied to an ageing workforce.
- The text also reinforces the right to disconnect from work devices and allows activity to stop when there is a serious and imminent threat to safety.
- A new territorial prevention agent would visit very small firms with up to 10 workers to propose fixes, as the draft advances with union backing but without CEOE-Cepyme, and La Vanguardia reports extra in‑house prevention units for firms over 300 staff or 150 in high‑risk sectors.