FORTY-TWO fatal work-related accidents were recorded from January to date while 959 injuries were reported during the same period, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has said.
REPORT BY SILAS NKALA
In a speech read on his behalf by Barbra Tanyanyiwa during the National Safety and Health Day celebrations in Bulawayo last week, ZCTU president George Nkiwane said occupational accidents remained too high.
“Economically, occupational accidents have negatively contributed towards business overheads, reduction in manpower and suffering of dependents after the loss of bread winners,” he said.
“In the period January 2013 to date, the country has already recorded 42 fatalities and 959 injuries inspite of efforts by the National Social Security Authority in getting everyone educated and trained in occupational safety and health.”
Nkiwane said the informal and domestic sectors which constitute more than 89%, recorded the highest occupational injuries and fatalities.
He said according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates, 2,4 million women and men die annually as a result of work-related accidents.
“A closer look at these causes would reveal that workers have been subjected to precarious work for poverty wages, less job security, few benefits and have minimal control over working conditions,” Nkiwane said.
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“Our concern is that there is often lack of hazard risk assessment training and workers in fear of losing their jobs do not speak out.”
He said the ZCTU believed that work-related accidents and ill health could be prevented through collaboration of workers, employers and the labour body as social partners under the ILO conventions.
Nkiwane said ZCTU was pushing for the review of the national policy in occupational safety and health in Zimbabwe.
The annual commemorations are organised in memory of the Hwange Kamandama Mine shaft number 2 disaster where 427 workers perished when the mine collapsed on June 6 1972.
