{"id":3780,"date":"2021-05-26T11:12:24","date_gmt":"2021-05-26T09:12:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.famelab.gr\/?p=3780"},"modified":"2021-05-26T11:12:24","modified_gmt":"2021-05-26T09:12:24","slug":"new-legislation-in-qatar-provides-greater-protection-to-workers-from-heat-stress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/famelab.gr\/el\/new-legislation-in-qatar-provides-greater-protection-to-workers-from-heat-stress\/","title":{"rendered":"New legislation in Qatar provides greater protection to workers from heat stress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/famelab.gr\/el\/new-legislation-in-qatar-provides-greater-protection-to-workers-from-heat-stress\/\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-7434 size-medium\" title=\"FAME Lab - New legislation in Qatar provides greater protection to workers from heat stress\" src=\"https:\/\/www.famelab.gr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/New-legislation-in-Qatar-provides-greater-protection-to-workers-from-heat-stress-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"FAME Lab - New legislation in Qatar provides greater protection to workers from heat stress\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"long-title\" lang=\"en\">New legislation in Qatar provides greater protection to workers from heat stress. As temperatures begin to soar across the Gulf region, Qatar has adopted new rules providing further protection to workers from heat stress. A Ministerial Decision announced on 26 May 2021 introduces a significant expansion of summertime working hours during which outdoor work is prohibited. Under the new rules which come into force immediately, workers cannot work outside between 10:00 and 15:30 from 1 June to 15 September.<\/p>\n<p>This replaces legislation from 2007, that prohibited work in outdoor workspaces from 11:30 to 15:00, between 15 June and 31 August. In addition, regardless of the time, all work must stop if the wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT) rises beyond 32.1 \u00b0C in a particular workplace. The WBGT index takes into consideration ambient temperature, humidity, solar radiation and wind speed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are confident that the measures the new Ministerial Decision introduces will help further mitigate the risk of heat stress for workers, which is our health and safety priority during the summer months,\u201d said Mohammed Al Obaidly, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs (ADLSA). The new measures also introduce requirements for annual health checks for workers, as well as mandatory risk assessments to be prepared by enterprises. \u201cThe new Ministerial Decision is an example of evidence-based policy-making, drawing on field research on the environmental conditions and the effectiveness of different mitigation strategies\u201d said Max Tu\u00f1\u00f3n, from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ilo.org\/beirut\/projects\/qatar-office\/lang--en\/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ILO Project Office in Doha<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mitigation strategies can keep workers safe from heat stress<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In 2019, the world\u2019s largest study into heat stress was carried out in Qatar, by ADLSA, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ilo.org\/global\/lang--en\/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">International Labour Organization<\/a> (ILO) and the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy. Throughout the summer of the same year, the <a href=\"https:\/\/famelab.gr\/el\/\">FAME Lab<\/a> (<a href=\"\/el\/www.famelab.gr\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">www.famelab.gr<\/a>) from the University of Thessaly, Greece, a leading institution in this field, was commissioned to collect data on workers\u2019 health and work intensity, covering more than 5,500 work hours.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Representatives of workers\u2019 and employers\u2019 organizations welcomed the new legislation.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe occupational safety and health of all workers is a priority for employers. We support measures to mitigate the risk of heat stress among workers, ensuring protection and proper working conditions for everyone. And we hope that these new tools and regulations provide the necessary clarity to employers to prevent such incidents\u201d, said Roberto Su\u00e1rez, Secretary-General of the International Organisation of Employers (IOE).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe welcome this new legislation and commend the Government of Qatar for its continued efforts to protect workers\u2019 health and safety at work,\u201d said Sharon Barrow, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). \u201cWith climate change negatively impacting workers worldwide, we should expect more countries to adopt heat stress legislation in the near future.\u201d In order to ensure awareness of this legislation, labour inspectors are providing advice to employers and workers on outdoor working hours as well as actively enforcing the new measures. Guidance to help enterprises implement the new rules is available as are information materials in various languages for workers.<\/p>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/www.miragenews.com\/new-legislation-in-qatar-provides-greater-566690\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/www.miragenews.com\/new-legislation-in-qatar-provides-greater-566690\/<\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ilo.org\/beirut\/projects\/qatar-office\/WCMS_794475\/lang--en\/index.htm?utm_source=miragenews&amp;utm_medium=miragenews&amp;utm_campaign=news\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/www.ilo.org\/beirut\/projects\/qatar-office\/WCMS_794475\/lang&#8211;en\/index.htm?utm_source=miragenews&amp;utm_medium=miragenews&amp;utm_campaign=news<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New legislation in Qatar provides greater protection to workers from heat stress. As temperatures begin to soar across the Gulf region, Qatar has adopted new rules providing further protection to workers from heat stress. A Ministerial Decision announced on 26 May 2021 introduces a significant expansion of summertime working hours during which outdoor work is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/famelab.gr\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/famelab.gr\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/famelab.gr\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/famelab.gr\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/famelab.gr\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/famelab.gr\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/famelab.gr\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/famelab.gr\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/famelab.gr\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}