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This paper brings to the fore the need to study the causality of work accidents starting from the hypothesis that the causes must be identified immediately, respectively the dysfunctions of the work system, which contribute to their occurrence. So, in the causal chain of the work accident, the last link is the “meeting” between the victim and the material agent who injures her, and often the factors of the work system, which are potential causes of injury, are specific to the worker and represent an error inappropriate behaviour in terms of occupational safety, in the form of wrongdoing or omissions. In this regard, cognitive ergonomics is still an untapped area, although it can make significant contributions to improving work performance and creating safe and healthy working environments in industry. Cognitive functions are relevant when we talk about 4 essential skills of the worker, respectively: sensation and perception, attention, short and long term memory. The paper brings more information for the scientific community because the analysis highlights the link between the cognitive functions of workers and the errors generated by them in the dynamics of a work accident, and can also be a starting point for new research.

The offenses concerning safety and health at work have no material object, their constitutive content including: the object and subject of the offense, the objective and subjective side of the offense. The active subjects of an offense have a legal obligation to apply and control the implementation of occupational safety and health measures and the passive subjects will bear the consequences of the occurrence of specific events. The existence of some uncertainties in the current legislation, also affecting mining companies, creates legal disputes especially in relation to the issues concerning active subjects. As for the passive subjects, the legal loophole refers to the situation of the day-labourers who may be involved in accidents at work and occupational illnesses. The authors consider it is necessary to formulate new law articles for clarification and even to draw up a future law with concrete reference to day-labourers, but also to some new risk sensitive social groups. Thus, the egal work relationships: the manner of performing the work, its remuneration and subordination to the beneficiary carrying out mining activities, will also be specified.

In 2019, 13 years have passed since the adoption of Law no. 319/2006 on Safety and Health at Work. Analysing the conditions of its application, there is a clear need to change, to correct some structural deficiencies and to reformulate various terms and definitions. The „ad literam” translation of the Council Directive 89/391/EEC has led to the forced introduction of some terms (e.g. designated worker, external service, light accident) or the ambiguous formulation of some requirements (e.g.: the situations in which the employer resorts to external services). The authors formulate proposals that will lead to the improvement of mining activities: - the obligation to undergo psychological examination, upon hiring and periodically, as a result of intensification of the general stress conditions and the effects of the special activities conducted underground; - determining the number of specialists in the field of occupational safety and health, depending on the number of employees in the respective enterprise; - the investigation of all work related accidents by the Territorial Labour Inspectorates, respectively the Labour Inspectorate, in order to avoid the conflict of interests during their investigation and to have a correct record of them, including in the mining activities.

The paper describes a new method of occupational health and safety risk assessment. This method, called MEVA, unlike the old ones, focuses more on reduce or eliminate subjective issues in determining the probability of manifestation of risk factors and is based on a deductive reasoning, with the help of which is studied the chain between two or more events. The novelty of the method consists in combining risk assessment techniques with evaluation of compliance with legal and other requirements, aiming to provide a more objective results of the risk assessment. In the MEVA method, the risk matrix is defined by 5 classes of severity and 5 probability classes, resulting in 5 levels of risk. After quantifying the risk factors, prevention measures are proposed for all the identified risk factors and each partial risk level is recalculated as a result of the proposed measures. The five levels of risk were grouped into three categories: acceptable, tolerable and unacceptable. The MEVA method is a simple method and it can be used for assessing various workplaces, with different characteristics of complexity, activity domain or occupational health and safety recordings.

This paper presents some specific aspects regarding criminal liability in case of infringement of the rules on occupational safety and health (OSH) and the occurrence of work accidents, referring to the object and subject of the offense according to the provisions of articles 349 and 350 of Law no. 286/2009 and of Law no. 319/2006. There are determined the active and the passive subjects involved in the occurrence of events, as well as their duties and obligations in terms of safety and health at work. Personal considerations were formulated regarding the classification of the employed staff in the category of active subjects, but also regarding the need for urgent clarification of the situation of the day workers who perform activities under Law no. 52/2011 and who can be involved in work accidents with different degrees of seriousness produced within the company.