Rwanda : Workers’ rights ,a must know

Congress of Labour and Brotherhood {Contraf} calls upon the Rwandan government and development partners   to educate employees concerning their rights.

The president of the organization Dominic Bicamumpaka said employers do exploit workers because of the workers’ ignorance of their rights and freedom.

These remarks were made at a one day training for employers and employees from the various orgainsations, the private sector federation and the ministry of labor among others.

Bicamumpaka said that “employers will only respect their employees’ rights if they are aware that these employees have knowledge about their protection or their rights which will bring about peace in the place of work”.

“There should be a clear and stipulated mechanism that will enable workers or employees learn about their rights if they are to get protection especially regarding the labor law; know when and where to report if offended,” said Bicamumpaka.

Speaking to Kigali today, employees said they are exploited in terms of working for many hours a day without considering allowances while others noted that even when they feel like reporting such cases they are afraid that once their bosses get to know they will definitely be fired. These are the most of the challenges that employees face now.

One employee who preferred his name to be anonymous said “because they are not sure of protection after reporting some mistreatment by their bosses, it is such a challenge and it could lead to someone being discontinued from work and maybe not getting somewhere else to work from because of the bad recommendation from their previous bosses”.

He added on that there is need for the two parties, that is, the employers and employees to cooperate to retain labor, and also promote and increase on its out put, though some employees may have wrong attitude, and fail to cope with employers’ demands and regulations.

The Senior Worker`s Education Specialist, and a board member of the international labor organization [ILO]Ben Dia Said, added on that training programmes should be designed to strengthen and build on government policies.

“To promote workers ‘rights we shall worker with the government and all the development partners especially those that deal with promoting the workers’ rights to see to it that the two parties cooperate and work on their relationship in the working environment,” said Ben

Bicamumpaka also noted that the government’s policy and laws to protect the employers and employees were in place but there was need for supervision to enable enforcement and this does not require the government only but also the development partners.