The Occupational Health and Safety Act (OSHA) provide for the health, safety and welfare of persons employed, and all persons lawfully present at workplaces. A dynamic growth enterprise in the hotel industry was faced with litigation and fines when one of their employees suffered from injury to the back and displacement of the cartilage between the backbone vertebrae L2, L3, L4 and L5.
In the claim, the employee was in the course of cleaning a male changing room, when he fell and got injured. He was cleaning the floor when he slipped, lost his balance, and fell on the ground as the floor was wet. The employer was fined for negligence and held solely liable for the workplace accident due to failure to provide adequate personal protective equipment and safe systems at work exposing the employee to risk and damage.
Upon returning to work, the employer did not modify the work environment or assign alternative or lighter tasks to the employee as after the injury the cleaner could not stand for long or carry heavy items. The employee was also denied sick leave and later discharged from work on medical grounds. Upon taking the matter to court, the discharge from duties was considered unjustified, unlawful, and unfair. The Court granted the employee equivalent of 7 months’ salary in compensation for unfair and unlawful retirement at Kshs. 63,945. He was also granted general damages at Kshs. 1,800,000 for pain, suffering, loss of amenities, and to enable him to cater for his future physical and psychological healthcare.
Occupational health and safety (OHS) is just as important in schools as any other workplace. Two schools in Kenya, one where at least seven children (7) died after a classroom collapsed at a primary school. The school was constructed next to a sewer, which weakened the foundations of the building causing it to collapse. The school was accommodating more than 800 students. The other school was in Western Kenya where a stampede in a stairway resulted in loss of life of fourteen (14) children - nine girls and five boys – with nearly 40 other students injured - some critically and taken to hospital. The students were reported to have rushed down a narrow staircase at the end of the school day. The staircase is said to have collapsed killing and injuring the students. Essentially, the SGBs in question did not adhere to minimum safety standards and did not get necessary approvals from the national building regulator. Apart from the school’s reputation being damaged, there was the loss of young lives, grief for the students who died, and students who were injured, as a result of not observing OHS practices.
The owners of the enterprises faced litigation and were charged with negligence, and manslaughter – which are criminal charges, and might lead to fines, and imprisonment. Schools also have a legal duty of care towards their students. In most cases, establishing a health and safety culture with effective OHS processes will assist in meeting this duty of care.
A growth stage venture processing milk was reported for negligence and poor treatment of its employees when a casual employee boiled to death in their milk factory. The casual worker had been instructed by a supervisor to clean the boiler manually which was against the factory standard operating procedure as the boiler was meant to be cleaned mechanically. The casual succumbed to severe burns after his workmate at the factory opened a boiler’s hot water inlet while he was still inside cleaning the boiler. The autopsy report indicated that the total burnt surface of the casual worker was estimated at 87 percent.
This led to reputation damage of the company resulting to reduced market share due to poor safety practices. The casual worker was earning USD 3 per day. He was the sole breadwinner of the family with dependent in the immediate family (wife and nine-month-old baby) and extended family. In the absence of a welfare safety net, loss of wages means no money for food, shelter, and clothing for his family as the employee was not insured.
Unfair treatment of employees leads to lack of motivation and reduced productivity, which is bad for business. An intermediary undertook a diagnostic for a school, to understand why employees were unmotivated. The diagnosis identified that the leadership was perceived as dictatorial, had poor communication skills, and offered a low pay to staff. This resulted in the employees feeling undervalued, and they became reluctant in performing their duties thereby compromising productivity considering that they lacked an incentive to build the business. This affected the overall performance of the institution as students perform better in a school whose staff has high motivation and morale.
The intervention from the intermediary included inviting the leadership to facilitated conversations to collectively chatter a way forward for the enterprise, and the employees. Poor employee motivation is likely to highlight a weakness in the management structure or leadership, and might result to missed opportunity from investors, who may