By Hon. Agnes Kunihira, Female Workers’ MP
Training programmes that are directly tied to employment opportunities have proven to be particularly effective in targeting women and men entering the labour market. (New entrants). In Eastern Asia countries like India, Indonesia, Bangaladesh, Pakstan and others, it is mandatory for employers to provide training to all new entrants in factories at no financial cost. Workers learn how to balance lines, calculate work efficiency, develop sufficient skills and accuracy and get a acclimatized to work ethics before they enter the factory. This strategy serves the following purposes-:
• The new comers develop self confidence and start work without fear.
• In the case of women, the training helps them to get stamina, shy away with inferiority complex and work skillfully with their counter parts.
• It gives chance to the supervisors to observe the trainees before hand for appropriate placing.
• It helps workers to fill knowledge gaps before taking on the job. This helps them to minimize mistakes at work.
• The employer takes advantage to educate the new entrants on company regulations and other basic issues like Occupational Safety and Health (OSH), Accidents at work, Fire fighting etc.
• Workers learn proper use of materials instead of wasting them and therefore reduced costs.
• The production levels go up and hence increased profits.
• In the case of service industries, there is increased customer care and good industrial relations. The Uganda story is different. First the Employment Act does not compel employers to provide training before recruitment.
Secondly, the new worker is at the mercy of the employer. In most cases recruitment is not done on merit, it may be on tribal basis family relationship, bribally just to mention but a few. Even after recruitment, there is no such a thing like training. A worker gambles by him/her self to catch up with the factory norms. It is just in rare cases that supervisors give a helping hand to the new entrants.
The worker further faces unfavorable conditions at work. There is no statutory minimum wage and very little support from the ministry responsible for labour. In Uganda the ministry is so much marginalized, it is just a small department in the Ministry of Gender and Social Development.
This department is poorly funded and the Inspectorate section is almost non functional. The employers take advantage of this at the expense of the new employees,
WHAT THEN SHOULD BE DONE?
• Put in place a government statutory minimum wage.
• Create a fully fledged Ministry of Labour.
• Recruit technical staff e. g Labour officers, Inspectors etc.
• Copy a leaf from Eastern Asia and incorporate their training policy in industries.
• Trade Union s should intervene by ensuring that employers comply with the law■
