AKEL initiative’s for a bill requiring employers to provide suitable seating for workers currently to stand for long hours in jobs has a successful outcome
Sunday 10 December 2023, “Haravgi” newspaper
Parliament unanimously approved a bill requiring employers to provide suitable seating for workers currently required to stand for long hours in jobs at Friday’s plenary session.
This is an issue that AKEL had raised in previous months by tabling legislative proposals to oblige employers to provide seating for workers and/or to take such measures to organise work space and time (more rest breaks, changing posts) in order to avoid prolonged standing. During the discussions in the Parliamentary Labour Committee, AKEL’s bill proposals received the support of all MPs, as well as workers’ trade union organisations.
They were subsequently discussed in the Pancyprian Safety and Health Council and the Labour Advisory Council and finally, with the support of the competent Ministry, took the form of a bill.
As AKEL MP Giorgos Koukoumas said in his speech during the debate, this is an issue that concerns the “daily reality for thousands of workers in our country. In shops and department stores, in bakeries, fruit markets, supermarkets, malls, airports, factories, industries, hotel facilities, care structures”.
It also concerns, the AKEL MP noted, “the salesmen and saleswomen in the bakeries and shops we visit every day where employers refuse to place chairs and stools at the checkouts, forcing workers to stand static for hours, even though it would make no difference to customer service if they could sit down”.
The AKEL MP even referred to instances where employers remove all the chairs from the shop floor because some strange marketing concept dictates that the customer should not see the employee sitting, but also in cases in large chain stores where employers monitor employees through security cameras to make sure they don’t sit for a single moment.
Prolonged standing at the workplace means daily strain on the legs, back, knees and so on and, according to a study carried out by the European Agency for Health and Safety at Work, continuous standing in the long term accumulates more serious health problems for workers such as rheumatic and musculoskeletal disorders. Three out of four workers who stand for at least ¼ of their working time suffer musculoskeletal disorders at some stage in their lives.
Finally, AKEL MP Giorgos Koukoumas asked the Ministry to immediately start inspections and impose penalties on employers who will not comply with the new legislation. “Workers are not machines, they are not robots and if employers do not understand this, they should be forced to understand it,” concluded the AKEL MP.
A waitress serves pasta in a restaurant in Milan, northern Italy, Thursday, June 8, 2023. Italians are calling for a pasta protest as food prices squeeze Europe. Grocery prices have risen more sharply in Europe than in other advanced economies from the U.S. to Japan, driven by higher energy and labor costs and the impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
