Definitions under the OSH Code
Chapter Forty
Syllabus topic 3.1, "Concept, definitions, registrations and Duties of Employer and Employee"
Pages 287 to 294 of 597
In one line
Section 2 is the dictionary of the OSH Code, and its three most important entries are worker, establishment and core activity, none of which means what the other Code's dictionary would suggest.
In exam wording: section 2 of the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code 2020 defines the terms used in the Code, and in particular distinguishes an "employee" under section 2(1)(t) from a "worker" under section 2(1)(zzl), sets the thresholds of "establishment" under section 2(1)(v) and of "factory" under section 2(1)(w), and defines the "core activity of an establishment" under section 2(1)(p) with an eleven item exclusion list.
Why a chapter on definitions at all
For the same reason as in the other Code, and one more.
The ordinary reason is that in a regulatory statute the definition is the obligation. Whether a duty applies turns on whether the place is an establishment, whether the person is a worker, and whether the activity is a core activity.
The additional reason here is that a student meets this Code after working through the Social Security Code, and the same words have been redefined. Four in particular:
| Word | Social Security Code | OSH Code |
|---|---|---|
| factory, with power | 10 or more employees, s.2(32)(a) | 20 or more workers, s.2(1)(w)(i) |
| factory, without power | 20 or more employees | 40 or more workers |
| worker | not used as a defined class | defined, s.2(1)(zzl), and narrower than employee |
| establishment | three limbs, no headcount, s.2(29) | ten or more workers in two of its four limbs, s.2(1)(v) |
A student who carries the first column into Modules III and IV will answer wrongly, and MU sets both halves in one paper.
Some words this chapter uses
Precincts are the grounds attached to premises. Manufacturing process is defined in section 2(1)(zi). Adolescent and adult are defined in section 2(1)(a) and (b). Avocation means a person's occupation or calling. Intermittent means occurring at irregular intervals. Support services are activities serving an establishment's main business rather than being it.
1. Worker and employee: the two classes
This is the distinction that runs through the whole Code, and it does not exist in the other one.
"Employee", section 2(1)(t), the wider class. In respect of an establishment, a person, other than an apprentice under the Apprentices Act 1961, employed on wages to do any skilled, semi-skilled, unskilled, manual, operational, supervisory, managerial, administrative, technical, clerical or any other work, whether the terms of employment are express or implied; and a person declared to be an employee by the appropriate Government. It excludes any member of the Armed Forces of the Union. A proviso deals specially with when a person is "employed" in a mine.
"Worker", section 2(1)(zzl), the narrower class. Any person employed in any establishment to do any manual, unskilled, skilled, technical, operational, clerical or supervisory work for hire or reward, whether the terms are express or implied, including working journalists and sales promotion employees, but not including a person:
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