SAFETY WEEK 2010 – SEPTEMBER 20 – 25-Occupational safety and health law in Seychelles |21 September 2010

What is the objective of the OSH legislation?
The aim is to prevent anyone from being killed or injured, or contracting an illness in a workplace or workplace activity, or in a specified high-risk plant.
This is achieved by preventing or minimising exposure to risk.
 
Does the OSH legislation apply to you?
Yes, if you are: an employer; a worker; a self-employed person; a person in control of workplaces; a principal contractor; a designer, manufacturer, importer or supplier of plant; a designer, manufacturer, importer or supplier of substances; an owner of specified high-risk plant; a visitor to a workplace, for example a customer or sales representative.

The OSH legislation places an obligation on every person associated with a workplace in any way to ensure his or her own workplace health and safety and the workplace health and safety of others.

What is the framework of the decree?
The decree, which is the supreme law governing safety and health in the workplace, provides a framework to prevent or minimise exposure to risk by:

- Imposing an obligation on people who have the capacity to affect the workplace health and safety of others, by what they do or by what they fail to do;

- Establishing industry benchmarks through regulations and advisory standards;

- Establishing a workplace health and safety board: to allow industry to take part in improving workplace health and safety strategies, and to promote community awareness of workplace health and safety;

- Providing for industry – developing codes of practice;

- Providing for the training of workplace health and safety representatives and setting up of workplace health and safety committees to foster cooperation between employers, principal contractors and workers;

- Providing for the appointment of workplace health and safety officers to help employers and principal contractors, accredited providers to help industry manage particular risks; and inspectors to monitor and enforce compliance.

Some terms used in the OSH legislation 
A workplace – A workplace is any place where work is performed or is likely to be performed by a worker, self-employed person or employer.

A worker – A worker is a person who does work for an employer, or does work at the discretion of an employer, other than under a contract for service.

An employer – An employer is a person who, in the course of his or her business or undertaking, engages someone else to do the work, other than under a contract for service.

A self-employed person – A self-employed person is someone who is not an employer or worker, and who does work for gain or reward.

A construction workplace – A construction workplace is a workplace where building work, civil construction work or demolition is done.

A principal contractor – Where the construction workplace is for domestic premises, the principal contractor is the person in control of building or demolition work at the workplace (normally the builder). At all other construction workplaces, the principal contractor is a person appointed by the owner of the workplace. If no appointment is made, the owner is the contractor.

Specified high-risk plant – The Act lists specific items of plant that may cause risk to public health and safety, for example, lifts and escalators.

Your obligations at a workplace
The decree places an obligation on every person to ensure his or her own workplace health and safety as well as that of other people.

Employers are obliged:
- To ensure the health and safety of each worker at work;
- To ensure their own health and safety;
- To ensure the health and safety of other people who are not workers, for example visitors,        salespeople, passing pedestrians.
Principal contractors are obliged:
- To ensure the orderly conduct of all work at the construction workplace so as to minimise the risk to health and safety;
- To ensure that workplace operations do not endanger members of the public;
-To help an employer meet his or her workplace health and safety obligations;
- To provide safeguards and take safety measures under a regulation for principal        contractors.  

If nobody else owes a health and safety obligation to an item or hazard at construction workplace, then the principal contractor must assume the obligation.
If a principal contractor believes that an employer or a self-employed person is not meeting the health and safety obligations, the contractor must direct them to do so.
If the person fails to obey, the principal contractor must direct work to stop until the     obligation has been met.
Self-employed people are obliged:
- To  ensure that their health and safety, and that of others, is not endangered by the way they carry out their business and work activity.
People in control of a workplace are obliged: 
- To ensure that people can come to work at the workplace with minimum risk of injury or illness;
- To ensure safe access to the workplace for all people, including those who are not workers; 
- To ensure that any plant or substance they provide for work by people who are not their workers is safe and properly used.
Workers (and all people at a workplace) are obliged:
- To obey the instructions of an employer regarding their health and safety, and the health and safety of others (at a construction workplace they must obey the principal contractor);
- To use personal protective equipment (PPE) if it is provided and they have been trained to use it.

They must not:
- Deliberately interfere with, or misuse, anything that has been provided for workplace health and safety;
? Deliberately endanger the workplace health and safety of any person, or deliberately injure themselves.

Designers, manufacturers, importers and suppliers of plant, including specified high-risk plant
Designers and importers are obliged:
- Ensure that plant is designed so as to be safe when used properly;
Designers, manufacturers, importers and suppliers are obliged:
- To make available all operating instructions and directions for safe use; and
- To take steps to prevent the use of unsafe plant, including recall if necessary.
Erectors and installers of plant and specified high-risk plant are obliged to:
- Erect or instal the plant safely; 
- Ensure that nothing about the way the plant was installed makes it unsafe or a risk to health when properly used.
Any employer or worker who commits an offence under the Occupational Safety and Health Decree or Legislation is subject to prosecution which may result in a fine of R20,000 or imprisonment.
Always think – Safety First.

Copies of the safety and health decree and regulations are available electronically at the labour monitoring and compliance section, email: inspectors@employment.gov.sc