Duties and Rights of the Employee
Chapter Forty-Five
Syllabus topic 3.1, "Concept, definitions, registrations and Duties of Employer and Employee"
Pages 319 to 324 of 597
In one line
An employee must take care of himself and others, report what is unsafe and not misuse safety equipment; and he has a right to be told about the risks and to have an imminent danger acted on.
In exam wording: section 13 of the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code 2020 imposes seven duties on every employee at the workplace; section 14 confers the right to obtain information about health and safety, to make representations, and to raise an apprehension of imminent danger, with the Inspector-cum-Facilitator's decision on the existence of that danger being final; and section 15 forbids any person from intentionally or recklessly interfering with, damaging or misusing anything provided in the interest of health, safety or welfare.
Why the law has these at all
Because safety cannot be delivered to a worker; it has to be done with him.
The employer controls the plant, the systems and the money, which is why sections 6 to 9 put the heavy duties on him and on the people who supply him. But the employer is not on the shop floor at three in the morning. The person who first sees the frayed cable is the worker.
So section 13 gives the worker duties, and section 14 gives him the two things without which those duties are worthless: the right to know what the risks are, and a route for raising danger which does not end with his own employer.
And section 14(4) is the provision that makes it real. If the employer is not satisfied that the danger exists, he must nevertheless refer the matter forthwith to the Inspector-cum-Facilitator, whose decision shall be final. The worker's concern cannot be closed down by the person it is about.
Some words this chapter uses
Reasonable care is the care a prudent person would take in the circumstances. Standards here means the occupational safety and health standards declared under section 18. Health and safety representative is the worker representative through whom concerns may be raised. Safety Committee is the body constituted under section 22. Imminent means about to happen. Wilfully means deliberately; recklessly means with conscious disregard of an obvious risk.
Section 13: the seven duties of an employee
Every employee at a workplace shall:
| Clause | Duty |
|---|---|
| (a) | take reasonable care for the health and safety of himself and of other persons who may be affected by his acts or omissions at the workplace |
| (b) | comply with the safety and health requirements specified in the standards |
| (c) | co-operate with the employer in meeting the employer's statutory obligations under the Code |
| (d) | if any unsafe or unhealthy situation comes to his attention, as soon as practicable report it to his employer or to the health and safety representative, and in a mine to the agent or manager referred to in section 67, the safety officers or an official for his workplace, who shall then report it to the employer in the prescribed manner |
| (e) | not wilfully interfere with, misuse or neglect any appliance, convenience or other thing provided at the workplace for securing the health, safety and welfare of workers |
| (f) | not do, wilfully and without reasonable cause, anything likely to endanger himself or others |
| (g) | perform such other duties as the appropriate Government prescribes |
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