What it is
When workers from several companies share a site, their risks add up: the cleaner, the HVAC technician and the line operator all work in the same space. Contractor safety coordination means managing those risks together. In Spain it is a legal duty called CAE.
Spain regulates it in article 24 of its Occupational Risk Prevention Act (Law 31/1995) and in Royal Decree 171/2004. Other countries set comparable requirements through their own safety rules.
Who it affects
- The site owner or operator that lets other companies in: a property, a plant or a chain with many locations.
- The main contractor that contracts or subcontracts part of its own activity, such as a maintenance company with subcontractors.
- Every contractor and subcontractor, which reports its risks and provides its documents.
Day to day
The hard part is not requesting the documents but keeping them current. Each one expires at its own pace: the list of workers, the insurance, medical fitness or training. Without an expiration date on every document and a reminder with time to spare, the problem shows up on the day someone arrives to work.
The usual mistake
Treating documents as an onboarding step. They are requested when the supplier is set up, saved to a shared folder and never looked at again. Six months later, much of it has expired and nobody knows.