What are the legal protections for health and safety for workers in Southern Africa?
Rene Loewenson: Essentially, there are two kinds of legal frameworks. One is the Factories and Works Act, old British legislation that emanates from the 1920s and covers mainly industrial workers. These laws do not cover agriculture, small enterprises, the informal sector or civil servants – which are the bulk of the work force. The mining sector tends to be covered in separate legislation. In countries operating within this framework, you have a highly fragmented set of legal protections that generally leave most of the workers out. Other countries have progressed toward a more modern legal framework, under Occupational Health and Safety Acts. These are essentially drawn from ILO [International Labor Organization] conventions, tend to cover most workers, don’t differentiate whether you work in industry or agriculture, and incorporate far more tripartite approaches. Law on paper and law in practice, however, are two totally different things in Africa. You can have very nice pieces of l
