Section 1. The Secretary of Labor is hereby authorized to promulgate and
enforce rules, regulations, and orders to establish safety standards
and otherwise to promote and increase the safety of laborers and
employees in mines, quarries or metallurgical operations and other
industrial enterprises, against danger of injury, or disease: Provided,
That whenever, in the opinion of the Secretary of Labor, the
enforcement of any rule, regulation, or order may prove detrimental to
the normal operation of the enterprises enumerated herein, he may make
exemptions which he shall revoke when conditions warrant such
revocation.
Section 2. For the proper enforcement of this Act, the
Secretary of Labor shall appoint one Senior Safety Engineer, who shall
be a duly licensed mining, mechanical or naval engineer possessing not
less than four years experience in actual practice in the Philippines,
and one Junior Safety Engineer, who shall be a duly licensed mining or
mechanical engineer possessing experience of not less than two years.
The said engineers shall aid the Secretary of Labor in establishing
safety standards and perform other duties which the Secretary may
prescribe from time to time.
Section 3. It shall be the duty of every person,
partnership, association, company, firm or corporation, engaged in
mining, quarrying, metallurgical operation or any other industrial
enterprise, to give every facility to the Safety Engineers mentioned in
the preceding section and other agents whom the Secretary of Labor may
designate for the inspection of works, processes, and any other unit of
the industrial enterprise, and otherwise facilitate the performance of
their duties imposed by the provisions of this Act.
Section 4. Every person, partnership, association,
company, firm or corporation mentioned in section three hereof shall,
for the protection of all its laborers and employees against accident
or diseases, provide reasonable and approved safety devices, tools and
appliances in accordance with the rules, regulations and orders
promulgated pursuant to this Act.
Section 5. An Advisory Safety Council is hereby
created which shall be composed of the Undersecretary of Labor or his
duly authorized representative, as chairman, one mining engineer to be
designated by the mining operators, one representative of other
industrial undertakings to be designated by industrial concerns, one
representative of industrial accident insurance companies, one
representative of the public, the last two to be designated by the
Secretary of Labor. The Council shall serve for two years without
compensation, and shall advise the Secretary of Labor in the
formulation of safety orders, rules and regulations, safety devices and
safety standards, designed to safeguard the health and lives of workers
in mining and other industrial operations.
Section 6. A violation of any of the provisions of
this Act or any of the orders, rules, and regulations promulgated
pursuant thereto, shall subject the manager, superintendent or other
officer directly concerned to a fine of not less than fifty pesos nor
more than five hundred pesos, or to imprisonment for not less than ten
days nor more than six months, or both, in the discretion of the court.
Section 7. To carry out the purposes of this Act,
there is hereby appropriated, out of any funds in the Philippine
Treasury not otherwise appropriated, the sum of eight thousand pesos
for salaries, wages, and other expenses necessary for the enforcement
hereof: Provided, That the Senior Safety Engineer shall receive a
salary of three thousand six hundred pesos per annum, and the Junior
Safety Engineer, three thousand pesos per annum: Provided, further,
That subsequent appropriations for the enforcement of this Act shall be
included in the General Appropriation Act.
Section 8. This Act shall take effect upon its
approval.
APPROVED: October 29, 1936.
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