Govt to force employers implement the rights of workers

By Ben Musanje

29^th April 2022

As Uganda prepares to join the rest of the World to commemorate the International Workers Day this week, the government has expressed its commitment to intensify the enforcement of the rights of workers at the workplaces in the country.

International Workers’ Day also known as Labour Day in most countries is a celebration of labourers and the working classes that is promoted by the International Labour Movement and this occurs every year on May 1.

Betty Amongi, the Minister for Gender, Labour and Social Development while addressing the journalists at the Uganda Media Center in Kampala ahead of the Labour Day, says that they also intend to ensure that employers issue contracts of service or appointment letters to employees.

She cites their monitoring visits at some companies and factories where they found most of the employers not meeting all the obligations under the laws of this country in relation to the payments, occupational health and safety of workers.

Amongi says that most employers dodge paying social security contributions for their employees in the National Social Security Fund- NSSF by using contractors to employ temporal workers in order to avoid issuing contracts.

In their findings there was a reduction in production and loss of jobs at most workplaces where by 57% of the companies that were employing over 2 million people reduced the numbers of staff members, supply chain and sells but also noticed a 5% increase in employment within the transport sector.

At least 2.9million Ugandans went into unemployment due to temporary layoff by some firms, youth unemployment between the age brackets 18 to 30 years constituted 34%, while 35% of workers in agriculture reduced their salaries.