Summary

Art. 34 of the laws of infringements of the administrative law enacts prosecution for the violation of the regulations of the prevention of accidents or other regulations of the protection of labour including the nonfulfilment of the requirements of labour law acts.

The article treats upon the order of the application of administrative punishments for the above-mentioned violations, rights and obligations of the factory inspector in meteing out the punishments.

In the first quarter of 1994 over a thousand enterprises, institutions and organizations were inspected in Estonia. More than 12,000 prescriptions were made of which the majority concerned violations of the provisions of the labour contract law and unsatisfactory organization of the protection of labour. Almost 2,000 prescriptions were made to the employers in whose enterprises the safety of work process did not meet the requirements. Over a thousand prescriptions were made to these employers in whose enterprises environmental and living conditions were at a low level. At the same time factory inspectors have fined employers relatively seldom and preferred prescriptions. While practice has shown that, in general, no adequate reaction follows the requirements of the prescriptions concerning the elimination of violations. Factory inspectors expend much of their time to bring to the employers' remembrance the necessity to inform the factory inspection about the measures taken for the elimination of the infringements of the law.

There are such employers in Estonia who are of the opinion that they have right to set such conditions to the employee which are useful only for the employer and, at the same time, disagree with laws.