7 November 2008
Maputo — Mozambique's largest trade union federation, the OTM, has protested vigorously against the government's plan to scrap the Labour Inspectorate, replacing it with a General Inspectorate of Economic Activities.
Under Labour Minister Helena Taipo, the Labour Inspectorate has been an activist body in defence of workers' rights, visiting companies across the country, and fining those who are paying below the minimum statutory wage, who fail to provide their workers with protective clothing, who oblige workers to put in illegal amounts of overtime, or who otherwise break the country's labour laws.
The labour inspections set off howls of protests from the employers, and demands from the Confederation of Business Associations (CTA) that inspections should be "educative" rather than "punitive". It was claimed that fines and other sanctions against employers would discourage investment.
The OTM's Executive Committee, in a statement received by AIM on Friday, strongly opposed any attempt to water down the powers of the Inspectorate, and insisted that Labour Inspectors must have teeth - their work, the OTM said, cannot be seen as merely didactic, teaching companies what they should so. Instead they must retain the power "to apply sanctions against companies that repeatedly violate the Labour Law".
As for the employers' new strategy of merging the Labour Inspectorate into a more general economic inspectorate, the OTM warned "this will make inspections very complex and could result in the new institution becoming ineffective".
In any case, the 2007 Labour Law, born out of a consensus between employers, unions and government, grants specific powers to the Labour Inspectorate to monitor compliance with the law. Abolishing the Labour Inspectorate would thus be clearly illegal.
Labour Inspectorates are not peculiar to Mozambique. The OTM points out that such bodies are internationally accepted, and that a convention of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) urges all ILO member states to set up inspection systems.
The OTM also noted that Labour Inspectorate regulations have already been discussed and adopted by consensus in the Labour Consultative Commission (CCT), the tripartite negotiating forum between the government, the unions and the employers' associations. Instead of toying with the illegal proposal to merge the labour inspectorate into another body, the government should simply approve the regulations already discussed by the CCT.
The OTM demanded that any changes in the powers of the Labour Inspectorate should first be analysed in the CCT. It warned that any weakening of the Inspectorate was likely to lead to a deterioration in labour relations.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
