Safety committee

A committee an employer (事業者) must set up at each workplace in the industries and of the size a Cabinet Order (政令) sets, to investigate and deliberate on the basic measures to keep workers from danger, on the causes of industrial accidents (労働災害) and the measures to keep them from happening again so far as they concern safety, and on other important matters of keeping workers from danger, and to give the employer its opinion (Industrial Safety and Health Act, Article 17, paragraph (1)). Its members are one person the employer names from the general safety and health manager (総括安全衛生管理者) or others in overall charge of running the business at the workplace or in an equivalent position, who chairs it; safety managers (安全管理者) the employer names; and workers at the workplace with experience of safety whom the employer names (Article 17, paragraphs (2) and (3)). Half of the members other than the chair are named on the recommendation of the labor union (労働組合) organized by a majority of the workplace's workers or, where there is none, of the person representing a majority of them; this rule and the rule on who chairs give way so far as a collective agreement (労働協約) with such a union provides otherwise (Article 17, paragraphs (3) to (5)). An employer that must set up both this committee and a health committee (衛生委員会) may set up a safety and health committee (安全衛生委員会) in place of the two (Article 19, paragraph (1)).