Interview with Joyce Msengi Nullings

1.) What is your job? I am the Human Resource manager and that basically means I keep the school in order with the government's regulations. I am here to ensure that all the labor laws are understood, all the staff are treated well, and lastly I "connect" to immigration on the work permit of International staff.

2.) How is your job important to the school? My job is very important to the school because it acts like a bridge between employees and the employers.

3.) How do the workers know their rights? It's my job to train them, and to educate them with all the information that I know, and I also get a lot of help from the labour office. There are also scheduled trainings where I meet up with the employers to educate them. Also there's the Association of the Tanzania Employer (ATE) which takes place.

4.) How do you educate yourself on the different labour laws? I usually learn through the Labour Office, and I participate in workshops that are also provided by the Labour Office. Also the ATE provides education, and then there is also the resource and aid of the Government Act and Supplement.

5.)How do you ensure that the school  follows all the laws? It's my job to inform any new changes that takes place in the laws or acts, and there is also ongoing communication that takes place through meetings etc...

6.) What do you do if you get a complain from a worker? First of all I listen to the complaint, and then I take the "necessary action". This basically means that I make sure the situation is resolved. You can't really have a certain procedure, because it really just depends on the complaint and whether its solvable or not.

7.) What are the five most important rights that each worker should or has to have?

1. Safety
2. Non-descrimination
3. Salary
4. Benifits according to their job
5. Education

8.)  If you could make any labour law/right what would it be? I would like certain areas of certain laws to be "complete", by this I mean there is no vague areas in the law. For example:
Whenever there is a maternity leave, the government has left it very "open". There is no closure with the law, meaning there is no appointed time limit for certain aspects of maternity. The government should appoint a certain time limit for something such as breast feeding, so that there are no excuses to elongate working hours.