제 목 : Netherlands Tackle Disability Through Insurance Premiums
일 자 : 1997년 01월
제공처 : Safety ＆ Health
The Netherland's government introduced a scheme in l993
to financially penalize companies that allowed an employee
to become disabled, and to provide incentives to companies
that employed a partially disabled person. The scheme,
however, became an election issue and was partly dropped
afrer a new government was elected in l995.
"The financial penalties were too high," says Jos Kester
from the Netherlands' Trade Union Confederation. "Even some
unions were not happy with the scheme."
Dirk Bekman from the Ministry of Social Affairs says that financial
incentives to companies that employ a disabled person will remain,
but a more indirect system of insurance-premium penalties will be
introduced in l998 to encourage employers to improve working
conditions that could lead to disablement.
In the past, the national insurance system made no distinction
between an injury that occurred in the workplace and one that occurred
outside the workplace. The company paid a proportion of wages to
the disabled worker for a period depending on his or her length of
employment prior to the injury. This system will continue with a few
changes, such as the right of disabled employees to sue their
employers, says Bekman.
Employers, unions and insurance organizations still need to make
decisions about the extent to which workplace factors contribute
to disabilities, since employers will not want to pay higher insurance
premiums for a disability that may not have resulted from a work
condition. Where to draw this line is an increasingly controversial
issue in occupational health.
The main diagnoses for work-related disabilities in the Netherlands
at this time are psycho-social/ mental disorders and musculoskeletal
problems.
|
