Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

4.3.5. Health Management and Working Conditions
In distinction to Germany, Polish enterprises always played a role in the provision of
health care for workers. Before the pension reform of 1999, social insurance contributions
were paid only by them. Comprehensive health checks were to be conducted upon
recruitment and in regular intervals; that obligation was re-confirmed with a law of 1996
and is pursued until today, also in the firms in my sample. The Guide to Good Practice in
Age Management (Naegele/Walker 2006: 17) recognises regular health checks as a positive
measure in order to prevent work-induced illness or disability.
However, the standard of occupational safety was very low and characterised by low
effectiveness of enforcement mechanisms, weak safety culture among the workforce and
employers and lack of self-responsibility for one´s own health, and under-investment in
occupational protection (Brown et al. 2001). That has improved in the course of EU
accession.
Nowadays, Poland is among European leaders with regard to incentives to improve
working conditions, as the contribution to accident insurance depends on the accident rate
in the given company (ibid: 255). That constitutes in my view an opportunity for
prolongation of working life, and has already been reflected in singular cases in firm
behaviour – the gradation of the accident insurance premium by degree of risks to health
has motivated Firm PL-4 to improve working conditions and occupational safety. European
Council directives do not oblige employers to establish an internal health care unit.
However, in practice many Polish firms do this, as my firm case studies will show. That
way, the institutional legacies of the Polish system of labour law are reinforced by external
institutional regulations to the benefit of prolonged working lives.
Only four of the studied Polish firms included regulations on occupational safety or
workplace health promotion in the general Company Agreement. On overall, health
management has in Poland a much lower standing than in Germany, and is in most cases
reduced to the provision of basic or extended health check-ups and health care.
The main goal of health management in the Polish firms in my sample is the prevention
of illness and of occupational accidents. Most companies have either a company physician
and nurses, own a health centre or pay for the utilisation of an external health centre by their
workers. Comprehensive health care, although not explicitly focused on older workers,
nevertheless benefits them most due to health risks rising with age. Most firms also employ
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