Accidents in the kitchen: burns, cuts and a workforce that changes every month
Nextica Law & Tax represents bars, restaurants and hotels from the first hour of an accident: investigating and documenting the event, dealing with the Labour Inspectorate, defending against a proposed surcharge on cash benefits for lack of safety measures, the employee's civil claim and the criminal front if one opens. With the sector's own weak point placed front and centre: evidencing the prevention training and information given to a workforce with high turnover, hired by season and often in several languages.
The accident happens to someone who started three weeks ago. The question is what training they were given and who can prove it.
What's included
1. Immediate care, notification and preserving the scene
not changing the fryer, the griddle or the floor before documenting them.
2. Assembling the technical file
risk assessment for the kitchen or floor role, equipment maintenance, and the record of footwear and protective equipment issued.
3. Evidencing that specific person's training, dated before the accident, which in a workforce arriving in batches means training in the first few days and not at the start of the season.
4. An internal investigation reconstructing the shift
who was on that station, what service was running and who gave the instruction, because that is what gets asked afterwards.
5. Appearing before the Inspectorate and defending against the proposed surcharge, with the maintenance history of fryers, griddles and cold rooms on the table.
6. Coordinating with the external company where the injured person is not your own employee —cleaning, maintenance or supply.
7. Civil defence and, if proceedings open, criminal, with a single coherent account across all three fronts.
THE ACCIDENT HAPPENS TO SOMEONE WHO STARTED THREE WEEKS AGO
And the question that decides the file is not what happened, but what training they had been given and who can prove it.
Training signed for by someone who could not read it
the duty is to provide effective information and training on the role's risks, and in high-turnover, multilingual workforces a signed document without evidenced comprehension does not prove the risk was communicated.
arts. 18 and 19 of Law 31/1995 on the Prevention of Occupational RisksBenefit surcharge
imposed on the employer where the injury occurs on machinery or installations lacking the regulatory safety devices or through failure to observe safety measures. The company pays it directly, it is legally uninsurable, and it is paid at the percentage the rule itself sets.
art. 164 of the consolidated General Social Security ActChanging the installation before documenting it
it is done with the best intentions —so it does not happen again— and it destroys the evidence of how it was at the moment of the accident, which is the only thing that can support the defence.
Frequently asked questions
How do you evidence prevention training for a workforce that turns over so fast?
With an onboarding procedure carried out on day one that leaves a trail, not with an annual course almost nobody attends. In practice: documented delivery of the risk information for the specific role —fryer, griddle, cold room, knives, wet floors, manual handling—, initial training received and signed before starting work, non-slip footwear and the relevant equipment issued against a receipt, and all of it in a language the person understands. A signed document the person could not read proves nothing, and that does get checked.
Does my insurance cover the benefit surcharge?
No, and that is what surprises employers most. The surcharge imposed on the company where the accident results from a lack of safety measures falls directly on it and is legally uninsurable: no policy can cover it. It is calculated as a percentage of all the cash benefits arising from the accident, so where there is permanent incapacity or death it is paid as an annuity for years. And it has a knock-on effect: the decision imposing it becomes the best document in the employee's lawyer's hands in the later civil claim.
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