Address workplace injustice, inequality

Last week, Labour Day was commemorated in appreciation of worker’s contribution to national development.  The day is aligned to UPC’s socialist idealogy of ending poverty, ignorance and disease. UPC endeavours to put workers at the centre of its development agenda since independence and that’s why even the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) was started by UPC in 1969.

Be that as it is, there is also no minimum wage law in Uganda. The last law was passed by UPC in 1982. It put the minimum wage at 6,000. To date this has not been updated, all contributing to low productivity. 
 
Workers in Uganda also have low productivity compared to their counterparts in East Africa. According to a 2023 report by the Economic Policy Research Centre, the productivity of a worker in Uganda measured per hour is $3.53 while in Kenya it is $4.75. This is due to low skills, low pay and informality as 70 percent of the Ugandan workers don’t have contracts which is a violation of the Employment Act of 2006 (as amended). 

However, workers face a lot of injustices that undermine their productivity. One glaring area is the gross disaprities in salaries and remunerations among workers in Uganda. Political leaders have a lot of privileges and benefits compared to the mainstream public service and private sector. To be an MP, you need to have only Senior Six or its equivalent as a qualification while to be a nursery school teacher, one must hold a degree. Yet an MP earns more than Shs20m while primary school teachers earn only about Shs480,000. This is unfair.

There are the few privileged at the top of government getting hefty benefits at the expense of ordinary workers. Recently, we saw former Speakers driving away with fuel guzzling cars to be maintained by government among many other benefits. 

Then we have the service award or the ‘Mpuuga awards’ that commissioners of Parliament gave themselves late last year. What about the ordinary workers? Teachers, nurses, policemen, etc. What’s their service award?  
Salary disparities in Uganda and low pay is one of the reason for high brain drain. Public servants also complain of lack of adequate supplies to do their work effectively. 
The UPC government in the 1980s established the Institute of Public Administration (IPA) for the training and development of public servants but it was closed. Then it was re-instated recently as the Civil Service Training College in Jinja.

The other issues is occupation hazards in our workplaces, especially the factories. Most workers don’t get adequate protection, treatment nor compensation. Although the Ministry for Gender, Labour and Social Development stated last week during 2nd Annual Labour Convention and Expo 2024 that Uganda already has adequate policy and legal frameworks to address labour injustice issues. There is only one labour inspector for 210,000 workers yet the ILO recommends one for 40 workers. 
Worse still, the Industrial Division of the High Court has only two judges for the whole country. Which means a worker in Arua, Kotido or Kisoro has to travel all the way to Kampala.  

It is against that background that UPC proposes need to address these disparities as follows:
I. Decentralise the Industrial courts to regions and have at least one judge in eastern, western and northern .
II. Digitise labour inspection using the ILO Access to Justice Tool for Labour Self-Assessment which can be done online in order to have more reach. 
III. Promote the alternative dispute resolution mechanism to reduce case backlog in formal courts. 

IV. Pass the minimum wage law just like Kenya and Tanzania have a minimum wage law. Why not Uganda? We need to align our selves with other EAC countries.  
V. Establishing the salaries and remunerations commission as provided for in the 1995 Constitution of Uganda. Kenya already has one such commission, which looks at enhancing salaries. That’s why its not a surprise that they are ahead of us in workers’ productivity, besides having the minimum wage law.
VI. Finally, we need to improve our workforce with increased investments in capital, work based technology and human capital development.

The author, Mr Osinde Orach is the UPC national workers’ leader