Workers ‘at the mercy of employers’

Dar es Salaam. Tanzania must address various challenges in the labour industry if its people are to benefit from the country’s industrialization strategy, a new report by Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC) suggests.

The issues include employment contracts, knowledge of labour rights and obligations and compliance with compensation demands, according to the Human Rights and Business Report 2016.

Other challenges are freedom of association and active engagement of registered trade unions, gender issues at workplaces as well as issues of discrimination in the labour and employment industry.

The fifth LHRC report – which was conducted in 14 regions across Mainland Tanzania - found out that 37.82 per cent of surveyed workers didn’t have employment contracts while 62.18 per cent had contracts.

Presenting the report findings, LHRC researcher from the unit of human rights and business, Mr Pasience Mlowe said while 61.60 per cent have written contracts, 38.40 per cent have oral contracts.

The findings further show that only 40.11 per cent said they had an opportunity to negotiate terms of contracts with employers while 59.89 per cent said they were denied the opportunity.

While the Employment and Labour Act 2004 requires employees to be given copies of contracts they have signed, some employers opted to remain with copies.

According to him, workers have been working under different job descriptions contrary to the one stipulated in contracts they have signed.

“Study has found some companies preferring short term contracts, normally three to six months. Such contracts enable the companies to recruit new employees upon their expiry, thus they are exploitative,” he said.

The trend, according to Mr Mlowe, is purposely done to avoid having workers who might demand rights that skilled workers are entitled to.

Furthermore, he said, the report also revealed poor engagement of employees in salary determinations, with 50.72 per cent of respondents saying salary was determined by employer while only 18.62 per cent said employer negotiated with trade union as 10.03 per cent did personally engage in negotiations with their employers.

Generally, employees were reported to have little knowledge of labour laws, putting them in doubt whether they could advocate their rights in the process of fulfilling their obligations.

“Analysis shows that 79.94 per cent of respondents have said they did not have the basic knowledge of labour laws governing the country and obligations stated therein,” he said.

However, the Trade Union Congress of Tanzania (Tucta) and the Association of Tanzania Employers (Ate) have started awareness campaigns through radio programmes and provision of flyers to workers in some areas.

Companies are also reported to poor working condition thereby threatening the health of workers in production lines.

In the same vein, a number of companies violated Article 2 of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention and section 19 (1), (2) of the Employment and Labour Relations Act (ELRA), 2004 requiring employees to work not more than eight hours a day and 45 hours a week.

Similarly, a number of employees are still not contributing to social security funds and Workers Compensation Fund (WCF).

This is despite the fact that employers do deduct such monies from employees’ monthly salaries.

Employees, the study shows, are generally ignorant of the presence of the WCF.

Enacted in 2008, the WCF seeks to compensate employees suffering occupational injuries or who have contracted occupational diseases through handsome compensation that would enable their rehabilitation to full recovery.

Trade unions

While 64 per cent of the respondents believe trade unions were doing a good job, the report found out that the idea had not been well entrenched in the employment system.

“The current challenge with trade unions is that they lacked enough personnel at regional and district level rendering them to be very weak instrument in advocating workers’ rights,” the report reads.