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Majority of workers have no protective gear - report
Helmets are some of the protective gear that employees do not have. FILE PHOTO
What you need to know:
Worrying. International Labour Organisation estimates that over 270 million work-related accidents occur, 2 million of which are fatal. In economic terms, the cost of losses resulting from workplace diseases and accidents is estimated at about 4 percent of global GDP.
About 54 per cent of workers do not wear protective gear which exposes their lives to risk, a new survey has revealed.
According to a survey by workers’ advocacy body, Platform for Labour Action (PLA), only 46 per cent of the workers have protective gear as opposed to the higher percentage of employers stating that they provide the protective gear.
The report titled; “Assessment of the law and practice on workers compensation in Uganda”, shows that workers without protective gear are mainly those categorised as casual labourers and workers in small-scale factories such as the maize millers, metal fabrication, road cleaners and construction workers.
“Employers do not pay due attention to the safety of casual workers, it is often overlooked whereas the Workers Compensation Act (WCA) does not distinguish between categories or classes of workers with regard to safety at the workplace and thus growing widespread lack of compliance and violation of the Occupational Health Specialist (OSHA) and WCA,” says the report.
The survey sought to ascertain the most common injuries and illnesses suffered by workers in the course of employment and it established that overall, a good number of respondents’ (34.6 per cent) had ever suffered some kind of illness or injury at the work place in the course of employment.
The report assesses the gaps in implementation, enforcement and compliance with the Workers Compensation Act in Uganda and the effect that this has had on the working population especially the poor, vulnerable and marginalised workers.
“Body cuts were reported as the most common injury (40.2 per cent), falls (9.2 per cent), electric shock (8.4 per cent) body bangs (5.9 per cent), hit by falling objects (4.1 per cent), car accidents (7.6 per cent), diseases including Tuberculosis, Tetanus and malaria (11.3 per cent), burns (6.6 per cent), broken limbs (2.3 p er cent), eye injuries (1.9 per cent) while death/murder (2.5 per cent) was more pronounced in the security companies visited,” reads the report.
The report says: “This correlated with the responses from the employers who indicated that body cuts were the most common accident (44.4 per cent) in work place. Other common accidents cited by employer include; falling off buildings (9.2 per cent), eye injuries (16.7 per cent), and car accidents (13.9 per cent), broken limbs (5.6per cent ), were the other common accidents in their workplaces.”
The report indicates that 77.45 per cent of the workers shown that they were not treated by their employers in case of injury and only 22.55 per cent of the respondents had been treated by their employers after suffering injuries in the course of work.
Comments
Ms Diana Prida, a lawyer says civil servants who include the key players for implementing the insurance and compensation law are not insured and their compensation comes from the consolidated funds, which affect the performance and implementation of the Law (WCA).
“The law does not discriminate the public sector from the private sector but government do not insure its servants and these are the key players in the implementation of the Law. For example labour officers who are responsible for proving any damage or accident on the worker and compute workman’s compensation are not insured themselves and they are paid from consolidated funds in case of any need, which takes long over five years to be released,” Ms Prida says.
She argues that the labour law provides that the employer is liable for treatment costs and compensation to the employee whether the accident occurred due to worker’s negligence or not.
“The law includes all workers whether casual or permanent as long as they work in the company or organisation. Employers are using casual workers as an excuse to avoid insurance and compensation of their workers and they claim about their limited capital as a hindrance to provide and fulfill this workers requirement,” she says.
Dr Deogratias Ssekimpi, the acting Executive director Uganda National Association of Community and Occupational Health (UNACOH) says there is a need for the public to know the difference between workers’ medical care treatment insurance and compensation and how they are done to address the problem of misconception and bringing justice to all involved parties.
“Insurance companies have neglected the law provisions but they instead do their own assessments and computing without even the witness of the legal officer as by law. The legal officer is responsible to compute harm and what to be compensated to the worker,” he says.
According to the report, there exists a dearth of literature on workers compensation and its practice in Uganda although an average of 2000 cases of work related accidents are reported annually.
These accidents are common in construction sites, factories, security, transport sector and commercial agriculture.
