‘Non compliance to labour laws raises serious concern’
NON business compliance to labour laws and standards continues to be a concern in the country which leads to violations of human rights, a new report by the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC) revealed.
With an emphasis on relevant labour, land, environmental, and human rights standards, the report titled “Human Rights and Business Report 2021/22” analyses the level of human rights compliance in the business sector.
According to the report, despite some notable improvements in some standards, such as the requirement of employment contracts and the granting of leaves, the rate of human rights violations in corporations remained high.
Presenting the findings of the report, Joyce Komanya, LHRC Corporate Accountability and Environmental Justice Senior Programme Officer, said the survey found that labour-related grievances were mostly aired by workers in the manufacturing, hospitality, private security, transportation and media sectors.
“Key grievances include not being provided with (written) employment contracts, being overworked and not paid overtime, poor pay, poor working conditions, denial of leave, violation of the right to associate freely, and workplace violence and harassment (including sexual violence and harassment),” she said.
The survey was conducted between June and August 2022 in 14 regions of Tanzania Mainland by reaching a total of 1,921 individuals of whom 42 per cent were females and 58 per cent male.
Advocate Komanya further said 64.6 per cent of workers (6 out of 10) who responded to the survey and said they had employment contracts, an increase of 5.6 per cent compared to the previous survey.
She said the observed improvement in the percentage of workers with employment contracts. Ms Komanya, who is also the researcher, said Kilimanjaro had the highest percentage of workers with employment contracts (90 per cent) while Mara region had the lowest percentage (30 per cent).
“The percentage of workers with employment contracts was higher among male workers (67 per cent), compared to female workers (61 per cent). A third of both male and female workers did not have employment contracts,” she noted.
A significant improvement in the percentage of workers with written employment contracts, at 89 per cent, increased from 56 per cent in the previous survey.
About 61 per cent of male workers and 53 per cent of female workers said they had employment contracts. However, she said the majority of workers who claimed they had written employment contracts said they were not given copies of their contracts which was the case in the previous survey.
“This was found to be especially the case in Small and Medium scale Entrepreneurs (SMEs), including in the transportation, hospitality, and manufacturing sectors,” advocate Komanya said.
She said that human rights that were found to have been infringed upon as a result of businesses’ failure to adhere to relevant labour laws and standards include the right to form and join a trade union, freedom of association and the right to fair compensation.
On land acquisition for investment, she said there were concerns about payment of adequate and timely compensation, as over half of the community members who responded to the survey (54 per cent) said they were not sure whether compensation was granted fairly and timely, like in the previous survey.
