Minister, MPs agree to harmonise Employment Amendment Bills

Jul 18, 2020

The minister told the committee that Kunihira’s Employment (Amendment) Bill 2019 is not comprehensive enough

Members of Parliament on the gender, labour and social development committee have agreed with the labour minister Mwesigwa Rukutana to amalgamate the Private Member's Bill drafted by workers' MP Agnes Kunihira with the government Bill.

The minister appeared before the committee on Thursday and implored the members to halt consideration of the Employment Amendment Bill authored by Kunihira, arguing the government is in advanced stages of presenting a similar Bill which is more comprehensive.

"Honourable chair and the members, we would pray that the ministry takes over the responsibility of sponsoring the process of amending the Employment Act 2006. If this proposal is agreeable then we shall definitely accord the sponsor of the Employment (Amendment) Bill 2019 our maximum cooperation in the process of integrating provisions in this Bill into the government-sponsored Bill," Rukutana proposed.

The minister told the committee that Kunihira's Employment (Amendment) Bill 2019 is not comprehensive enough to capture all the necessary amendments to addressing the existing gaps.

"Besides, the challenges posed by COVID-19 on employment relations call for a critical reexamination of the Employment Act in order to make the law relevant to the challenges posed by the public health challenges like COVID-19. The Bill is not comprehensive enough to capture all the issues we intend to capture in the government Bill," the minister explained.

The informed the committee that the principles for the government Employment Amendment have already been presented to the cabinet.

The committee chairman Alex Ndezi wondered why the government keeps faulting private member's bills yet the office of the Attorney General is mandated to give technical guidance to MPs when they are drafting private members' bills.

Ndezi said about four private members' bills brought to his committee have been frustrated by the government in the same way. 

Bugabula County MP Maurice Kibalya noted with concern that so many private members' Bills have been frustrated in the past under the guise of government ministers claiming that they are working on similar Bills.

"In 2018, I had made steps to present a Consumer Protection Bill but I was stopped when the trade minister Amelia Kyambadde said they were working on a similar Bill. Up to now, the Bill has not come," Kibalya stated.

The mover of the Bill (Agnes Kunihira) questioned the seriousness of the gender ministry in drafting a similar Bill.

"In January 2020 the ministry of finance denied me a certificate of financial implication claiming that principles for a similar government Bill had been finalized. We are now in July and they are still talking about principles and not a Bill. By now, they should have finalized," Kunihira.

At the end of the negotiations in the meeting, the committee agreed that the minister would next week meet Kunihira to discuss the process of harmonizing the government Bill with her Bill.

Amendments to the Bill stem from Article 40 of the Constitution that provides for economic rights of workers that include; right to work under safe conditions, right to practice a profession, right to form trade unions, and protection of pregnant mothers.

The Bill specif­i­cally makes pro­vi­sion for the reg­u­la­tion of em­ploy­ment of do­mes­tic work­ers and ca­sual em­ploy­ees in Uganda so as to im­prove their work­ing con­di­tions; to pro­vide for com­pul­sory reg­is­tra­tion and li­cens­ing of re­cruit­ment agen­cies for do­mes­tic work­ers and non-man­ual la­bor­ers and to pro­vide for the re­cruit­ment and em­ploy­ment of mi­grant work­ers in Uganda and Uganda Mi­grant Work­ers abroad.

Other proposals in the Bill include providing a scope of sex­ual ha­rass­ment in em­ploy­ment, providing for the pro­tec­tion of work­ing breast feed­ing moth­ers, requiring em­ploy­ers to put in place poli­cies and fa­cil­i­ties for breast feed­ing moth­ers, providing for the con­ver­sion of ca­sual em­ploy­ment to term con­tract, and to pro­vide for the em­ploy­ment of vol­un­teers.

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