Spokesperson Wisani Mavasa said in a statement that a team of provincial labour inspectors led by Marsha Bronkhorst visited the Saaiman Boerdery farm on Friday.

The team, which included the Mangaung municipality’s Environmental Health unit and the Human Rights Commission, issued prohibition notices on the use of all sorting and packaging machinery at the farm.

The farmer, who employs about 50 workers, was issued with various notices of the contravention of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. These included notices for not providing proper personal protective equipment to all workers and not having a valid certificate of compliance for electrical installations.

The notices were valid until the farmer conducted proper induction training for workers in using the machines.

All the dangerous machines were safeguarded as per the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

Bronkhorst said: “We are not going to allow situations where an employer puts his profit before the well-being of the workers.”

“In this case it is obvious that the employer has not even tried to put anything in place in the interest of his workers’ health and safety,” she said.

“As the department of labour, we have to demonstrate strong intolerance of each and every employer who refuses to obey the law,” said Bronkhorst.

The labour team also found that the farmer has disregarded the Basic Conditions of the Employment Act’s Sectoral Determination for Farm Workers and was paying his workers salaries less than that stipulated in the legislation.

There were no contracts of employment and copies of pay slips or any other records available at the farm business.

Farm workers also did not have proper sleeping and ablution facilities, and food provided to them “was not of an acceptable standard”.

The farmer was ordered to comply with the legislation within 21 days or face the full might of the law.

Source: Sapa

Minister Mdladlana was addressing the media at the Construction Summit hosted by the Department of Labour in Johannesburg on Tuesday. The summit was arranged to discuss the growing number of fatalities and the state of Health and Safety in the construction sector.

With regards to the Health and Safety inspectors, minister Mdladlana said while he was hoping to increase their remuneration. The Department of Labour was working on increasing the number of inspectors employed there.

There are currently about 800 inspectors at the Department of Labour and they are looking at recruiting 300 additional inspectors.

The recruitment of more inspectors are a priority at the Department as the Minister set aside R690 million of the departments R1. 7 billion budget to recruit more inspectors. “We intend to similarly improve the competency levels of our inspectors for better enforcement of our laws,” he said at the time of his Budget speech.

The Construction Health and Safety summit was attended by various stakeholders from the construction industry. The aims of the Health and Safety summit was to:

• Set targets to reduce the number of fatalities in the Construction sector,

• To raise awareness about Health and Safety issues on construction sites,

• To decide on measures to reduce the number of Health-related injuries and deaths as well as to

• Put together a Health and Safety strategy to deal with incidents in line with the Occupational Health and Safety Accord.

The Health and Safety accord was signed between the Department of Labour, business and labour unions in 2002 and it seeks to reduce the high number of work-related incidents and to promote the establishment of healthy and safe working environments.

This accord requires of organisations to take a fresh look at the evaluation of Health and Safety programmes.

Source: BuaNews
By Edwin Tshivhidzo