Abuse at work in the spotlight   |23 August 2022

PS Francis addressing the workshop participants

• 75 complaints recorded at the Ministry of Employment from January to July 2022

By Vidya Gappy

Is the current legislation enough to deal with cases of assault/harassment at the work place? The question was raised by Luthina Monthy from the Attorney General’s office in a workshop focussing on how to eliminate abuse at the workplace.

Harassment at the workplace in Seychelles is unfortunately growing according to latest reports. According to Ronny Baker from the department of Employment, 182 cases were recorded in 2021 and from January to July this year, 75 complaints were recorded by his department.

The workshop, held yesterday, was organised by the Tourism department with the involvement of the Employment department, AG's Office, Seychelles Federation of Workers' Union and the Seychelles Tourism Academy, and attended by stakeholders from various organisations and businesses.

What is lacking right now is a proper internal mechanism to report cases of abuse/harassment or assault in the workplace. According to the several participants, Seychelles is also not up to date with the International Labour Organisation’s provisions to protect workers, thus not giving enough power to the unions to fight for the employees. We are still using the Employment Act to deal with cases and unfortunately there is no one document that include all amendments done. Someone has to refer to five documents.

Another issue raised during the workshop was transparency in reporting. It is not clear how complaints are reported and dealt with and most organisations/companies are not clear about their grievance policy and it is not across the board.

Many employers prevent their employees from joining trade unions and this is against the right of a person. Education about employees’ rights need to start at school.

Ms Monthy explained that there are different forms of abuse and often times, the victims do not know they can also complain to the police.

“Once investigations are done by the police, a case will be filed at the AG’s office. There are some provisions under the Employment Act that protect the employees such as 46 (a) – Provision for Discrimination which is very detailed and 46 (b) contains a provision against harassment. This is quite restrictive and it only mentions employer’s attitude towards employee. In this instance, we can see a gap as it does not include assault/harassment among workers.”

Ms Monthy also shared the Provisions in relation to sexual assault or harassment in the Employment Act and Provisions under the Penal Code.

Mr Baker noted that “abuse in our Employment Act has no definition; but we do have a definition for harassment and discrimination. With the number of complaints received, we expect to register more. Complaints regulated by the Employment Act & Occupational Safety and Health Decree are mainly for non-payment of salary; no compensation of overtime; payslips; no contracts of employment; workers being paid below the national minimum wage; safety and health - personal protective equipment not being provided and/or not being enforced to wear by employer and first aid kit and medical test.”

What happens when the department receives a complaint? Currently, if a complaint is registered at the department of Employment, an investigation is initiated and the findings are brought to the attention of the human resource personnel for their own internal investigations. This is followed by a report for the attention of the management of the Employment department and a letter is sent to the establishment with recommendations informing them of the issues.

According to the department of Employment, the establishments are provided with a time frame to attend to the recommendations and provide the ministry with the outcome. Some complaints do not require inspections such as non-payment of wages.

“A lot of cases where there are allegations of negative attitude of executive management members, the case is handled by the management of employment department. Majority of cases are addressed accordingly to suit both parties – employer and employees,” explained Mr Baker.

Harassment and discrimination is an offense under the law under Section 76 1(i). Regarding harassment cases, these are investigated by labour inspectors and for discrimination cases a determination is given by the principal secretary of the Employment department.

Antoine Robinson, from the Seychelles Federation of Workers Union, spoke thoroughly about the importance of ratifying the ILO Convention No. 190 (or C190 for short) which is the first international treaty to recognise the right of everyone to a world of work free from violence and harassment, including gender-based violence and harassment.

“It is important for Seychelles to ratify the C190 and its implementation together with R206 in order to prevent and address the rise of violence and harassment beyond the physical workplace. C190 protects against all forms of violence and harassment in the world of work. C190 is based on a broad concept of the ‘world of work’ that takes into account the fact that nowadays work does not always take place at a physical workplace. There is cyber bullying among others,” shared Mr Robinson.

C190 recognises the link between domestic violence and the world of work. It calls upon member States to recognise the effects of domestic violence, and mitigate its impact in the world of work. This Convention also protects those working in the informal economy.

Mr Robinson advocated for proper education about the rights and responsibilities of both employees and employers.

What is the way forward?

The principal secretary for Tourism, Sherin Francis, shared that to establish a proper mechanism, they will need more than a meeting and workshop.

“We have to partner together to work on the recommendations made a few months ago. We have more cases in the tourism industry as this is the sector that employs most of the Seychellois. The question remains – are our human resources prepared to deal with the issue? There are provisions already available in our laws but in our discussions today, we saw that even our laws have certain inconsistencies. The committee will meet again to pursue their work in order to facilitate the procedures and also propose what need to be added in our laws.”

Many concerns were raised during the workshop and the Committee will also follow up on some of the initiatives such as the setup of a National Employment Council among others.

Photos by Louis Toussaint