Interview with Juma Ngao

This interview is from one of the employee's called Juma Ngao. He is a builder who works at a company that I cannot name due to several reasons. Its translated into English from Kiswahili. Enjoy!

1.) What do you enjoy about your job?
 I enjoy being outside and usually my work is outdoors so I have a comfortable environment to work in. 

2.) What did you dislike about your job?
At first it used to be hard and tedious, although I got used to it.

3.) What are your working hours?
There are no specific hours- briefly 9-10 hours.

4.)How difficult was it to get this job?
It was not so difficult, I had  trial before I got the job. I did well in the trial and I got the job

5.) What were the requirements of this job?
Just being compatible with the working hours and physically being able to carry heavy weights.
 

6.) Are there areas concerning labour, where you don't know the rule?
(Couldn't answer it)
 

7.) What is your wage (If you don't mind)
------------

8.) What do you need to do in order for a raise?
 There are no raises that I know of.

9.) If you get sick, how much support is given?
There is usually a small advance that you can get, and also time off is an option.

10.) What is your longest holiday?
(not sure)

11.) Did this job have any requirements related to your education?
I only completed school until primary education, and I took care of my house after that.

12.) do you have a family? If so how many are you?
7 people

13.) If you could invent any labour law, what would it be?
To ensure safety of workers. Basically have protection while doing dangerous actions, specifically with builders.

More Interviews!

Some time back I did an additional 8 interviews,  I will be posting all of them up! 4 interviews are from employee's and 4 from employers. Stay Posted!

The Bill

In the United Republic of Tanzania, our  legal system is based on the English Common Law system. This system follows something called a Bill of Rights, which basically lists all the fundamental rights of all people living in Tanzania. According to TCCIA (check reference page), this Bill is "the foundation that governs all other legal requirements in the workplace."

These are some of requirement listed in the "Bill" :

"Employers and managers have the following responsibilities:

• Protecting and serving the interest of the business.
• Determining the objectives of the business.
• Arranging the best use of organizational resources (this includes human resources).
• Ensuring customer satisfaction.
• Making sure that the necessary standards of the product or service are maintained.
• Making sure that the operations of the business are carried out in a cost effective way, this includes the control of labour costs.

Employees have a particular role to play, they must:.

• Behave in the required manner at work.
• Perform their work as required.
• Remain loyal and obedient to the employer.
• Stick to reasonable rules and instructions.
• Exercise their right to association, bargain and strike in a responsible manner."

(TCCIA, n.d.)

I personally never knew about the Bill, and I found it super interesting! I found the last point very interesting in the employer section, because I would have never thought that would be a requirement that would be listed. I just thought that if someone has a business it's their decision on how to handle the money, although it's must to pay the employee's salary. 

Different Aspect's of Termination of Employment

AfricaPay.org is a great website!! It's definitely worth checking out. It has all these different answers to personal questions coming from employers.

Under the law, there are four grounds which layout the rules for a termination of an employee, which I got from AfricaPay.org (2012). These include:

• Misconduct- If an employee behaves badly, or is involved with a certain action, they can be fired. I would say, that things such as inappropriate language, turning up at work with an unprofessional attitude, thing's like that would be defined as "misconduct."
• Incapacity- If the employee cannot keep up with what is being required, or isn't physically capable of doing a certain job, an employer has the right to fire the employee.
• Incompatibility- If an employer or employee cannot meet each others requirement, I would say that an employer would be able to fire someone. Although I found this was the hardest one to explain, because "incompatibility" can be seen from many angles. If for example the employer has something against the employee that is personal, I would say that it is not allowed to fire them and the employee would be able to sue. (I need to research a bit more on this!)
• Employer's operational requirements- This goes back to point number two, if there are certain requirement that the employer needs, and the employee cannot meet them, then that basically means the employee doesn't have the qualification for that specific job. 

The writing in orange, is my personal interpretation of these four ground limits. I'm curious.. what do you think they mean?

Employment Termination

There are numerous ways an employee can have his/her employment terminated:

• It can be done by an agreement which basically means when a contract ends.

• If ever there is a sudden death or loss related to the employer, an employment may be terminated.

• If the employee applies for a resignation

• The termination can be done by an employer although there are rules which limit your ability to  fire an employee for certain reasons

 

(Africa Pay, 2012)

(Reference for Business, n.d.)

Stay posted because tomorrow I will be talking about questions such as:

o   Can I terminate an employee because I do not like her/him?

o   Can I terminate an employee who is facing a criminal charge before a court of law?

And much more!

Keep Posted!

Tommorow I plan on writing a blog about how a termination of an employment can take place... It's going to be pretty interesting!

so stay posted!

National Public Holiday's in Tanzania

"The official national public holidays in Tanzania for 2012 are:

(Katie, 2012)

January 1
January 12
* February 6 or 7
April 6, 7, 8, 9, 26
May 1
July 7
August 8
* August 21 or 22
October 14
* October 28 or 29
December 9, 25, 26

The holidays with a star, depend on sightings of the moon."

(Africa Pay, 2012)