Short answer. The Secretary of Labor and Employment sets and enforces the mandatory occupational safety and health standards employers must follow, through appropriate orders. That office is also responsible for creating new programs and updating existing ones to keep working conditions safe and healthful across all places of employment.
What the law says
The Secretary of Labor and Employment shall, by appropriate orders, set and enforce mandatory occupational safety and health standards to eliminate or reduce occupational safety and health hazards in all workplaces and institute new, and update existing, programs to ensure safe and healthful working conditions in all places of employment.
Labor Code, Article 162 — Mandatory Safety And Health Standards. Read the full provision →
The Secretary of Labor and Employment holds this authority
Article 162 names a specific office as the source of mandatory workplace safety rules: the Secretary of Labor and Employment. This is not left to individual employers to define for themselves, nor is it left to a patchwork of industry practice — one office is given the authority to set and enforce these standards through appropriate orders, applicable across every workplace in the country.
The standards are meant to eliminate or reduce hazards
The article frames the purpose of these standards clearly: to eliminate or reduce occupational safety and health hazards in all workplaces. The goal is not simply paperwork compliance — the standards exist because workplace hazards are a real, foreseeable risk, and the law puts a single national authority in charge of addressing that risk across every kind of workplace, whatever the size or industry of the employer.
This is an ongoing responsibility, not a one-time rule
Article 162 does not limit the Secretary's role to issuing a fixed set of standards once. It also directs the office to institute new, and update existing, programs to keep working conditions safe. Standards set years ago are meant to be revisited and revised as conditions and risks change, rather than treated as permanently settled and beyond reconsideration once first issued. The article also does not say individual employers are free to opt out where they judge a standard unsuited to their operations — the authority to set and revise standards rests with that office, not with employer discretion.
What this means for your employer's obligations
Because these standards are set by the Secretary of Labor and Employment rather than negotiated case by case, an employer cannot simply substitute its own judgment for what counts as adequately safe. Article 162 does not itself list what the standards require in a given workplace — that content is found in the specific orders issued under this authority, not in the text of this article alone, so the specific details vary depending on the industry and the hazard involved.