Health and Safety

Article 40 of the Constitution of Uganda, provide for Economic rights.

(1) Parliament shall enact laws

(a) to provide for the right of persons to work under satisfactory, safe and healthy conditions

Employer Cares
In accordance with section 13 of Occupational Safety and Health Act, 2006, it is obligatory for
an employer to ensure health, safety and welfare of persons at workplace.

Employer must take measures to keep the workplace pollution-free by employing technical
measures, applied to new plant or processes in design or installation, or added to existing plant
or process; or by employing supplementary organisational measures.

Employer must ensure safe working environment including its vicinity. Proper arrangements
should be made to ensure safety and absence of health risks related to the use, handling,
storage and transport of articles and substances. Provision and maintenance of workplace
which is adequate regarding facilities and arrangements for the welfare of worker is also
important.

Employer should provide and maintain safe and risk free means of access to and exit from the
workplace. Workers must be well informed of the real and potential dangers associated with the
use of the substance or machinery and they must be well equipped with personal protective
equipments to prevent the risks of accidents or of adverse effects on health.

Free Protection
In accordance with the provisions of Section 13(2g), 19, 91, and 95(7) of the Occupational
Safety and Health Act, it is the responsibility of employer to provide free protective equipment
including clothing to the workers involved in hazardous work. The type of Protective Equipment
needed varies depending on the nature of work being performed. The right use of Protective
Equipmebt reduces risk of accident and the adverse effects on health.

It is also a duty of the employer to provide instructions for the use of personal protective
equipment and make sure that they are used whenever required.

Training
In accordance with Section 13(2c) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, it is the
responsibility of an employer to provide instruction, training and supervision as is necessary to
ensure health and safety at work of his workers.

Labour Inspection System

According to Section 3, and 9 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, Labour inspection
system is present in Uganda. Occupational Safety and Health Act provides for a vibrant labour
inspection system (part II).

The Commissioner is responsible for the administration of Occupational Safety and Health Act
to improve and ensure health, safety, security and good working conditions at the enterprises,
inspecting enterprises and ensuring the law enforcement.

The national legislation provides inspectors the power to enter, inspect and examine the work
premises at any time during day or night; inspect any machinery, plant, appliance, fitting or
chemical in the workplace; take measurements, photographs, samples and make recordings for
the purpose of examination and investigation; ask for registers, documents, certificates and
notices to inspect, examine and copy them; interview any one; make all the necessary
examination and inquiry; if the inspector is a medical practitioner he/she may carry out medical
examinations; and may take police officer along with him/her if necessary. Labour inspector is
also authorised to dismantle the substance or to subject it to any process or test if it appears to
have caused or likely to cause danger to safety and health.

If an employer or his representatives do not facilitate the inspector and obstruct the execution
of his duties, he/she commits an offence and is liable to a fine up to forty eight currency points
or to imprisonment up to one year or to both.

Inspector must not disclose any information obtained during the course of his/her duty.

Under Section 3 of the Workers Compensation Act The employer therefore under Ugandan law
which is based on the common principle therefore has liability / duty to provide a safe working
environment and to protect the worker while in the course of employment

Compensation According to the Act

Section 3(1) for personal injury by accident which arises out of and in the course of a workers
employment,

To pay compensation even where the incapacity or death of the worker was due to the
recklessness or negligence of the worker or otherwise.
 to prove that the accident or injury did not arise out of employment if the employer is to
escape liability.

to prove that the accident or injury did not arise out of employment if the employer is to escape
liability.

to report the accident to the labour Officer

Section 18 provide that employer should provide medical facilitation to the worker insure
him/herself [7] in respect of any liability which he or she may incur under this Act to any worker
employed by him or her.

Where the employer fails to comply with subsection (1) or (2) without reasonable cause,
commits an offense and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding ten currency points. This
is equivalent to Two hundred thousand Uganda shillings ( UGX 200,000)and approximately U$
60.

An employer who contravenes this section commits an offence and is liable

(a) on a first conviction to a fine not exceeding ten currency points;

(b) on a second conviction to a fine not exceeding twenty currency points; and

(c) on a third and subsequent convictions, to a fine not exceeding one hundred and fifty
currency points or imprisonment not exceeding twelve months or both.

In order to minimise risk the employer is required to insure their workers against risks such as
injury while in the course of employment. The purpose of this insurance is not to transfer the
liability to compensate the worker to the insurer but rather to protect the employer from the
risk. In the event that the employer is deemed liable under the law but their insurer declines to
cover the liability, the employer is still liable to pay the attendant compensation. Even in
instances of bankruptcy, the employers rights against the insurer in relation to liability
notwithstanding bankruptcy laws and the winding up of companies, are be transferred to and
vest in the worker; Section 20 of the Workers Compensation Act, provideThus even during
bankruptcy the employers is protected from risk by insurance.

section 27(1)(b) of the Workers Compensation Act Provide that employer is liable to pay the
compensation unless that employer proves that the disease was not contracted while the
worker was in his employment.

Employee Legal Duty Under Human Rights

From a global scope, labor rights are viewed as a core component of the modern corpus of
human rights as captured in Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which
Uganda is bound. The article, stipulates that, everyone has the right to work, to free choice of
employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment;
everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work;

The article further states that, Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable
remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and
supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

Case Laws on Legal Duties

General Cleaning Contractors Ltd v Christmas: HL 1953

References: [1952] 1 KB 141, [1953] AC 180, [1952] 2 All ER 1110

Coram: Lord Oaksey, Lord Read

Ratio: It is the duty of the employer to consider the situation, devise a suitable system and
instruct his employees what they must do and to provide appropriate equipment. In leaving it to
individual workmen to take precautions against an obvious danger, the employers had failed to
discharge their duty to provide a reasonably safe system of work.

Lord Oaksey said: In my opinion, it is the duty of an employer to give such general safety
instructions as a reasonably careful employer who has considered the problem presented by
the work would give to his workmen. It is, I think, well known to employers, and there is
evidence in this case that it was well known to the appellants, that their workpeople are very
frequently, if not habitually, careless about the risks which their work may involve. It is, in my
opinion, for that very reason that the common law demands that employers should take
reasonable care to lay down a reasonably safe system of work. Employers are not exempted
from this duty by the fact that their men are experienced and might, if they were in the position
of an employer, be able to lay down a reasonably safe system of work themselves. Workmen are
not in the position of employers. Their duties are not performed in the calm atmosphere of a
board room with the advice of experts. They have to make their decisions on narrow window
sills and other places of danger and in circumstances in which the dangers are obscured by
repetition.

The risk that sashes may unexpectedly close, as the sashes in this case appear to have done,
may not happen very often, but when it does, if the workman is steadying himself by a
handhold, his fall is almost certain. If the possibility is faced the risk is obvious. If both sashes
are closed there is no longer the handhold by which the workman steadies himself. If either
sash is kept open the handhold is available and, on the evidence in this case, is, in my opinion,
reasonably safe. But the problem is one for the employer to solve and should not, in my
opinion, be left to the workman. It can be solved by general orders and the provision of
appropriate appliances.

Lord Reid said: The question then is whether it is the duty of the appellants to instruct their
servants what precautions they ought to take and to take reasonable steps to see that those
instructions are carried out. On that matter the appellants say that their men are skilled men
who are well aware of the dangers involved and as well able as the appellants to devise and
take any necessary precautions. That may be so but, in my opinion, it is not a sufficient answer.
Where the problem varies from job to job it may be reasonable to leave a great deal to the man
in charge, but the danger in this case is one which is constantly found, and it calls for a system
to meet it. Where a practice of ignoring an obvious danger has grown up I do not think that it is
reasonable to expect an individual workman to take the initiative in devising and using
precautions. It is the duty of the employer to consider the situation, to devise a suitable system,
to instruct his men what they must do and to supply any implements that may be required.

In the case of Wilsons & Clyde Coal Co Ltd v English

Facts

Mr English was employed at Wilsons & Clyde Coal Co Ltds colliery at Glencraig from 27 March
1933. He was repairing an airway leading off the Mine Jigger Brae, a main haulage road.
Between 1:30pm and 2pm he was going to the pit bottom and the haulage plant was put in
motion. He tried to escape through one of the manholes, but was caught by a rake of hutches
and crushed between it and the side of the road. His family claimed damages. The company
claimed that Mr Englishs own negligence contributed to his death, because he should have told
the person in charge of the machinery, or taken an alternative route.

Judgment

House of Lords held unanimously that an employer has a non delegable duty to create a safe
system of work. Even if an employer gives that duty to another person, they still remain
responsible for workplace safety.

Lord Atkin said he concurred with the other Lordships, and particularly with opinions given by
the Lord President in this case, and by the Lord Justice-Clerk in Bain v Fife Coal Co on the
English case of Fanton v Denville .
Lord Thankerton gave a longer judgment saying, [1] when a workman contracts to do work, he
is not to be held as having agreed to hold the master immune from the latters liability for want
of due care in the provision of a reasonably safe system of working.

Lord Macmillan gave a short judgment concurring with Lord Thankerton, the Lord President in
the present case and by Lord Justice-Clerk Aitchison.

Lord Wright gave a longer judgment.

Lord Maugham delivered a short concurring judgment.

In the case of Durnan Barnes v Stockton-On-Tees Borough Council: CA 29 Oct

1997
References: [1997] EWCA Civ 2594

Ratio: The claimant was injured at work at a swimming pool. As he and other members of staff
tidied away a wet inflatable slide, he slipped and fell, suffering serious injury.

Held: it was necessary for the employers to have laid down a system to this extent: they should
have warned their employees about the potential hazard of standing on the wet slide to remove
the ropes attached to it so long as the air hose was still underneath it. That, it seems to me, was
the hazard. I know that in this particular case the work had been done for many years and no
accident had occurred; but of course that is usually the case. However, it does seem to me that
there was inevitably a potential risk if men and women were treading on a wet, slippery piece of
plastic to pull it out of the water and beneath that plastic, but invisible to the naked eye at this
point, there was the air hose. Steps could have been taken to ensure the hose was put away
before the slide. The appeal succeeded, and the defendant was responsible, but the plaintiff
was 50% contributorily negligent.

Protection of Workers at Common Law

In common-law jurisdictions, employers have a common law duty to take reasonable care of the
safety of their employees. Statute law may in addition impose other general duties, introduce
specific duties, and create government bodies with powers to regulate workplace safety issues:
details of this vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

Conclusion and Advise to Uganda Blanket Ltd

Uganda Workers Compensation Act provides for liability of employers any accident arising in the
course of employment unless the contrary is proved. It requires employers to insurer their
workers against such risks. A good number of employers still do not cushion themselves against
such risks due to lack of awareness of the law. Some employers also adopt strategies of
outsourcing firms and subcontracting out services and casualization of labour. However, these
strategies do not remove the liability of the employers for injuries suffered by any workers in
the course of their employment under Ugandan law.

Reference

Constitution of the Republic of Uganda, 1995

Uganda Occupational Health and Safety Act 2006

Uganda Workers Compensation Act 2000

Universal Declaration Of Human Right, Article 23

Case Laws