National campaign on precarious work in Uganda

The theme “Social dialogue is a key driver to realization of living wage and fight against precarious work in Uganda”, focused on how social dialogue can be used to stop precarious work and promote a living wage in Uganda.

IndustriALL National Coordinating Council Uganda presented a paper on the situatiion of precarious work in Uganda and how it is affecting the welfare of workers. This raised a number of discussions from worker’s leaders, government, members of parliament for workers and the general participants at large as Uganda is gearing for the middle income economy by 2021.

The Ministry of State for Labour, Employment and Industrial Relations were invited as guest of honour. A promise was made to organize a seminar for all CEO’s of major industries and factories to discuss the issue of precarious work and follow up on implementation of employment regulations in the country by employers.

Key discussions and resolutions:

• Need for unity and cooperation among all the 42 trade unions in Uganda to forge a way forward to fight and stop precarious work in Uganda and organising
• Government committed to look at a possibility of developing social and economic policies, regulations to combat precarious work in the country and promote implementation of existing labour standards
• A private members bill on precarious work and occupatinal health and safety to be presented to parliament through the worker’s members of parliament and the collaboration of National Organization of Trade Union in Uganda
• Ministry of labour to develop database in the country on Precarious work
• Need for government to commit investors on implementation of labour laws before issuance of operating licences to combat precarious work and promote living wage
• Need to strengthen the national organization of trade union (NOTU) on organizing workers through its affiliates, carry out research on precarious work and activation of OSH committees in various work places for efficiency and effectiveness
• Encouraging trade unionists to change their ways of approaching precarious work by becoming activists and using methods such as consumer boycott to target employers that promote precarious work
• Trade unions to develop strong collective bargaining agreements combatting precarious work
• IndustriALL National Coordinating Council Uganda members resolved to have a special meeting in November to discuss key resolutions and develop a position paper and present it as a petition to the speaker of parliament of Uganda