The Workplaces Ordinance (Arbeitsstättenverordnung, ArbStättV) serves to protect employees' occupational safety and health (OSH) when workplaces are being set up and operated. It is addressed to employers, who have to ensure that workplaces do not pose hazards to their employees and any remaining hazards are kept as insignificant as possible.
Recent developments
The Workplaces Ordinance of 12 August 2004 (Federal Law Gazette (Bundesgesetzblatt, BGBl.) I, p. 2179) was most recently amended by Article 10 of the Cannabis Act (Cannabisgesetz, CanG) of 27 March 2024 (BGBl. I, p. 109). The revised ordinance entered into force on 1 April 2024.
Objective of the Workplaces Ordinance
The Workplaces Ordinance is intended to prevent accidents that could occur as a result of the poor design of workplaces. A significant proportion of occupational accidents are attributable to the inappropriate condition, set-up, and maintenance of workplaces, including accidental falls on damaged flooring or stairways and transport accidents on unsuitable or overly narrow traffic routes. Serious accidents caused by the shattering of glass walls or glass panels in doors and illnesses induced by unhealthy levels of operating noise are also to be prevented. Furthermore, the Workplaces Ordinance promotes healthy, human-centred work design. This is pursued primarily by the inclusion of requirements concerning healthy environmental conditions at work (air quality, climate conditions, lighting), impeccable sanitary facilities (toilets, washrooms, changing rooms), and welfare facilities (break and standby rooms, first aid rooms, living accommodation).
The Workplaces Ordinance lays down minimum requirements for employees’ safety and health that are to be observed when setting up and operating workplaces. The statutory foundation for this is the Occupational Safety and Health Act (Arbeitsschutzgesetz, ArbSchG), which authorises the German Federal Government to stipulate what measures employers and other responsible persons have to take and how workers should conduct themselves in order to fulfil their respective obligations under the act. This is done by enacting statutory instruments, which have to be adopted with the consent of the Bundesrat (Section 18 ArbSchG). Requirements laid down in other statutory provisions, in particular the building regulations of Germany’s federal states (Länder), take precedence to the extent that they go beyond the requirements of the Workplaces Ordinance (Section 3a(4) ArbStättV).
The Workplaces Ordinance transposes the European Workplaces Directive (89/654/EEC) into national law. Apart from this, Council Directive 92/58/EEC on the minimum requirements for the provision of safety and/or health signs at work is also transposed by the inclusion of a dynamic reference in the Workplaces Ordinance. Parts A and B of Annex IV to Council Directive 92/57/EEC on the implementation of minimum safety and health requirements at temporary or mobile construction sites and Council Directive 90/270/EEC on the minimum safety and health requirements for work with display screen equipment are transposed by the ordinance as well.
What the Workplaces Ordinance covers
The Workplaces Ordinance directly transposes the minimum requirements laid down in the above-mentioned European directives. In doing so, it mainly defines general protective goals rather than stipulating specific metrics and detailed requirements. This gives employers greater freedom when taking decisions about the design and operation of workplaces. The main body of the Workplaces Ordinance consists of ten sections in all, to which an annex is attached. This annex is divided into six headings laying down requirements and measures for workplaces that are to be considered in risk assessments carried out under Section 3(1). It is of particular significance that employers who employ people with disabilities have to take account of such individuals’ particular OSH concerns (Section 3a(2)).
What is more, apart from dealing with risk assessment (Section 3) and the set-up and operation of workplaces (sections 3a and 4), the main body of the ordinance also includes provisions for the protection of non-smokers (Section 5). Section 6 governs the content and delivery of instructions for employees. Section 9 contains a list of criminal and administrative offences for which the public authorities with responsibility for OSH are able to impose fines. In response to an application from an employer, the competent authority may grant exemptions from the rules of the Workplaces Ordinance, including its annex, if the employer takes other measures that are just as effective or if the enforcement of a rule would cause disproportionate hardship in the individual case. Any such exemption must be compatible with the protection of workers (Section 3a(3)).
Heading 1 of the Annex to the Workplaces Ordinance lays down general requirements regarding the features of workplaces. They relate to, among other things, room dimensions, floors, roofs, windows, doors, and traffic routes, as well as travellators, loading ramps, and vertical ladders. Reference is made here to safety signs and the general requirements that the design and stability of workplaces be appropriate to the use for which they are intended. Measures to protect against special dangers such as falls and incipient fires, as well as requirements concerning escape and rescue routes are dealt with in Heading 2 of the Annex. Heading 3 is concerned with essential working conditions such as the amount of space employees have to move around in, the configuration and equipment of workstations, and climate conditions, including room temperature, ventilation, lighting, and noise. Heading 4 specifies the minimum requirements that apply to the set-up and operation of sanitary and welfare facilities. Heading 5 covers supplementary requirements for workplaces that are not enclosed on all sides, workstations in the open, and construction sites. The last part of the Annex, Heading 6, lists measures for the design of display screen equipment (DSE) workstations. This heading was added when the Workplaces Ordinance was amended in November 2016.
Application and enforcement of the Workplaces Ordinance
The Workplaces Ordinance applies to work rooms and other indoor or outdoor locations, provided they are situated on an organisation’s premises or a construction site and are intended for use as workplaces. They include, in particular, locations to which employees have access in the course of their duties. Escape and traffic routes, storerooms, machine rooms, ancillary rooms, sanitary facilities, canteens, rest and standby rooms, first aid rooms, living accommodation, and installations used in the operation of the workplace (e.g. fire extinguishing installations, lighting installations, ventilation plants, energy distribution equipment, doors and gates, loading ramps, vertical ladders) also fall within the scope of the ordinance.
It is incumbent upon the public authorities responsible for supervising OSH provision (factory inspectorates, occupational safety and health offices) to enforce the Workplaces Ordinance. German Social Accident Insurance (Deutsche Gesetzliche Unfallversicherung, DGUV) Regulation 1, Principles of Prevention (Grundsätze der Prävention), also supplies Germany's social accident insurance providers with a legal basis on which to perform their preventive remit by applying the public OSH rules and regulations.
The Technical Rules for Workplaces (Arbeitsstättenregeln, ASRs) translate the ordinance’s provisions into more concrete forms and are essential aids for its practical implementation. The Committee for Workplaces (Ausschuss für Arbeitsstätten, ASTA), which assists the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales, BMAS) in an advisory capacity, is tasked with determining the Technical Rules for Workplaces (Section 7)
Technical Rules for Workplaces
The Technical Rules for Workplaces are what are known as sublegislative provisions and set out in a concrete fashion how the general safety and health goals and requirements defined in the Workplaces Ordinance can be met and fulfilled by employers (to whom the legislation is addressed). They therefore specify in the most concrete possible terms the benchmarks for the mandatory levels of protection that are to be complied with, in the interests of employees’ safety and health, when setting up and operating workplaces.
In addition, the Technical Rules for Workplaces set out examples of operational measures/solutions that can be used to achieve the stipulated levels of protection. These measures are described as concretely as necessary so they can be applied broadly across different sectors under the diverse conditions of workplace practice in both small/medium-sized and large organisations.
The Technical Rules for Workplaces are based on the latest advances in the state of the art, occupational medicine, and hygiene at the time of their publication. By providing practical assistance for the implementation of the legislation, they make it easier for employers to carry out risk assessments under Section 3 of the Workplaces Ordinance and adopt suitable measures for employees’ safety and health within their organisations. Provided an employer complies with the requirements laid down in the Technical Rules, they may presume they are complying with the relevant provisions of the Workplaces Ordinance (presumption of conformity). However, conformity may only be presumed if the original measures/solutions described in the Technical Rules are implemented exactly as specified. This helps employers ensure their implementation of the Workplaces Ordinance is legally secure because the effectiveness of the measures they take has already undergone anticipatory scrutiny.
However, the Workplaces Ordinance does not impose any obligation to implement the solutions laid down in the Technical Rules for Workplaces in their entirety. Employers are free to deviate from these solutions as they wish and choose suitable alternative measures, but still have to meet the OSH goals prescribed by the Workplaces Ordinance, including the benchmarks for the levels of protection stipulated in the Technical Rules. This means employers have to use alternative means to eliminate or mitigate identified hazards to which employees are or may be exposed so that the same levels of safety and health protection for employees (the "state of the art") are then achieved as would be achieved through the application of the Technical Rules. This has to be documented pursuant to Section 3a(3) of the Workplaces Ordinance. A separate application to the competent OSH authority is not necessary if this approach is followed.
If new benchmarks (e.g. changed metrics or other provisions) take effect when Technical Rules for Workplaces are published and the implementation of these benchmarks in workplaces that have previously been set up and are already being operated is only possible by making extensive modifications to them or if their implementation would cause disproportionate hardship in the individual case, this raises the issue of "grandfathering", which involves an old rule continuing to apply in certain situations after it has been generally superseded. The grandfathering of provisions in the Technical Rules is fundamentally out of the question from an OSH point of view. The background to this is the principle anchored in the Occupational Safety and Health Act that work-related risks to employees are to be minimised (Section 4(1) ArbSchG).
It is only by conducting a repeated risk assessment that an employer can determine whether a workplace needs to be modified accordingly in order to abide by new provisions in the Technical Rules for Workplaces or whether that workplace will continue to comply with the legal requirements. In addition, some of the Technical Rules already specify other risk-related measures as alternative, second-line design solutions for precisely this eventuality. Transitional arrangements for existing workplaces are also provided for occasionally in the Technical Rules. The alternative, second-line design solutions and the transitional arrangements laid down in the Technical Rules may, however, only be used by employers until their existing workplaces have been significantly reconfigured or expanded.
All the Technical Rules for Workplaces are available for download on the website of the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin, BAuA), while summaries can also be found in the print publication Workplaces - Workplaces Ordinance - Technical Rules for Workplaces (Arbeitsstätten - Arbeitsstättenverordnung - Technische Regeln für Arbeitsstätten).