Workers should benefit from OSHA campaigns

Editorial cartoon

By Editor
Three organisations dealing with issues relating to workplace safety will at end of this month hold grand discussions in Arusha as part of a campaign on occupational health.

Scheduled to start on April 25, the three-day event will enable participants to revisit the occupational hardships, ordeals as well as accidents workers are commonly faced with while discharging their duties in such sectors as mining, building and construction, manufacturing and agriculture.

The organisations, the Trade Union Congress of Tanzania (Tucta), International Labour Organisation and Association of Tanzania Employers (ATE) will bring workers and employees together.

The aim of the campaign is to create awareness and promote occupational health and safety at work places for purposes of increasing efficiency, reduce accidents and bolster the quality of life.

There is no doubt this is a very crucial and perhaps the rarest gathering of its kind in that is going to bring together representatives from the three organisations and the Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA) to crusade for workers’ safety.

We are in a world where occupational health, safety and welfare, more for workers than employers, is widely considered a thing of the past.

Many workers – especially those in mining, building and construction, manufacturing and agriculture – do not only work in very precarious circumstances but also operate in some of the most pathetic of conditions with employers largely unmoved.

Imagine of workers in a road construction project being undertaken by an international firm working with neither shoes – not to mention boots – nor anything to cover their heads or noses.

You might also have come across workers of big mining firms going down the shaft without the necessary gear, and those of a water or garbage cleaning facility moving out the stuff without hand gear.

While all these are common scenes in most occupations in Tanzania, respective authorities have not been keen enough to take measures to grapple with the situation. On the other hand, the workers themselves are compelled to work under such circumstances, not as a matter of choice, but because given the prevailing conditions, they have no work to do.

All this is contrary to the Occupational Health and Safety Act, which came into force in 2003 and mandates OSHA to ensure that there is safety, health and welfare of person at workplaces. It also underlines to protect other people, besides the workers, against risks to safety or health in connection with the activities of persons at work. However, in the present world of private business, there is little being done on this.

Let it be understood that the Act also provides for the promotion, co-ordination, administration and enforcement for occupational safety and health, aspects about which the public has lately been hearing little.

Under the Act, the Chief Inspector is supposed to conduct regular and impromptu inspections in companies. However, but in today’s world, this is seldom done.

We hope that the Arusha forums and campaigns will revisit all this so that people is updated on what is going on with respect to the whole issue of occupational safety and health, while also recommending the way forward. 

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN