Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi has issued a new directive on occupational aptitude and protection against the coronavirus pandemic.
Chlo-Loubser, senior spouse of the law firm Bowmans, said the board takes into account recent developments published through the Ministry of Health as new data on the resource virus such as the World Health Organization.
The new regulations impose more obligations on employers whose workers have returned to work, he said.
Loubser described the maximum settings in more detail below.
Risk assessments
Loubser stated that all employers must still adopt a threat assessment and expand a paint plan, describing the safeguards in position for the slow recoil of painters before opening.
“What’s new is that there’s now an additional detail that wants to be included in the employer’s paint plan: a description of the procedure to follow for any disorder that would possibly arise from an employee’s paintings outside the right to refuse to paint in express circumstances,” he says.
Employers with more than 50 employees
There are new reports imposed on employers with more than 50 employees, Loubser said, including:
“Previously, this legal responsibility occurred when an employer hired more than 500 employees,” Loubser said.
In addition, while the requirement to provide detection and detection knowledge in the past applied only to employers with more than 500 workers in certain sectors, all employers with more than 50 workers will now have to submit the following categories of knowledge to the National Institute of Health Workers (NIOH) electronically (to [email protected] or through the online platform) in the form shown in the rules (available here). »
This includes:
Knowledge of prestige of vulnerability will have to be provided once per employee. The remaining knowledge deserves to be sent weekly, as soon as you can imagine before Tuesday, for knowledge collected during the last calendar week starting Sunday, Loubser said.
“Previous knowledge would possibly also be sent through an employer through an agreement with the employer, if the agreement has an agreement with NIOH to receive, process and submit the knowledge to NIOH and is committed to submitting the knowledge on behalf of the employer.
“It is vital to note that employers will need to inform their workers that their non-public data will be submitted to the NIOH in accordance with the employer’s legal obligations and that the NIOH will comply with the provisions of the Privacy Act,” said Loubser.
Report cases
While employers have been required in the past to report each case in which a worker tested positive for Covid-19 to the Ministry of Health through the Covid-19 hotline number, positive cases should now be reported to the NIOH in the same way as reports made through employers of more than 50 workers (described above).
In addition, the directive asks employers to tell the Compensation Commissioner that an employee is diagnosed with COVID-19 in the workplace, in accordance with the New Crown Virus Disease Compensation Directive acquired in the workplace, Loubser said.
The directive also specifies that, in the event that an employee has symptoms of Covid-19 in the workplace, the employer’s legal responsibility is to isolate the employee and that the employee be transported to a public gym (i. e. test sites).
From there, the employee will be directed to self-disalrillation or go through a medical examination.
Isolation and quarantine periods
Loubser stated that the directive has been put into conformity with the standards updated through the Ministry of Health, reducing self-de-insulation and self-de-idslastion periods from 14 to 10 days.
Health workers in the highest threat should remain quarantined for 7 days which, according to the worker, could possibly be reduced to five days.
The era of self-aising applies to those who tested positive, while self-binding refers to close contacts/maximum threat to a positive case.
Rejection of paintings due to exposure to Covid-19
According to the above regulations, a painter may simply refuse to paint if there are cases that, with moderate justification, appear to that painter, or a representative of aptitude and protection, an imminent and serious threat of exposure to Covid-19.
In such circumstances, the employer has a duty to any disorder that may arise from the exercise of this right, after consultation with the Covid-19 Compliance Officer and any physical fitness and protection committee, Loubser said.
“Directive 14 of the revised NESS Directive now extends the duty of consultation to a fitness and protection representative, where there is no committee, and adds a legal responsibility for additional reporting in the event the matter is resolved internally,” he said.
“When the challenge is resolved, the employer is required to notify an inspector of the challenge within 24 hours and notify the worker and all other interested parties in resolving the challenge that an inspector has been notified,” he said.
If the employer does the ification, the worker can do it, Loubser said.
An inspector could then possibly, under OHSA segment 30, take into account a ban if he or she believes an act threatens or is more likely to threaten someone’s fitness and protection.
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