Occupational Safety & Health (Part V) cont’d…
TOPIC: INQUEST IN CASE OF DEATH BY ACCIDENT OR OCCUPATIONAL DISEASE.
I move now to PART IX of the Act: OFFENCES, PENALTIES AND PROCEDURE
Liability of employers, owners, directors and others
NOTWITHSTANDING anything contained in this Act, where an employer, or an occupier or an owner of premises to which this Act applies contravenes this Act or any regulation made thereunder, the employer, occupier, owner or competent person, as the case may be commits an offence if it is proved that he failed to take reasonable steps to prevent the contravention.

In a prosecution of an offence under any provision of this Act, any act or neglect on the part of any manager, agent, representative, officer, director or supervisor of the accused, whether a body corporate or not, shall be the act or neglect of the act or neglect of the accused.

Where an offence under any provision of this Act or the regulations committed by a body corporate is proved to be committed with the consent or connivance of, or to have been attributable to any neglect on the part of any director, manager, secretary or other officer of the body corporate or a person who was purporting to act in such capacity, he as well as the body corporate shall be guilty of that offence and shall be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.

Special provisions as to evidence
Section 78 (1) of the Act states:  Any person who is found in an industrial establishment at any time at which work is going on or the machinery is in motion, except during the intervals for meals or rest, shall, until the contrary is proved be deemed for the purposes of this Act to have been then employed in the industrial establishment:

Provided that this subsection shall not apply to an industrial establishment in which the only persons employed are members of the same family dwelling there. 

78 (2): Where, in any proceedings under this Act with respect to a person under or over a specified age, it appears to the court that such person is apparently under or over such age, it shall lie on the defendant to prove that the person is not under, or not over, the specified age, as the case may be.

78 (3): Where any entry is required by this Act to be made in the general register or in any other register or record, the entry made by the occupier of an industrial establishment or on his behalf shall, as against him, be admissible as evidence of the facts therein stated, and the fact that any entry with respect to the observance of any provision of this Act has not been made, shall be admissible as evidence that that provision has not been observed.

78 (4): In any proceeding or prosecution under this Act:
(a) A copy of an order or decision purported to have been made under this Act or the regulations and purporting to have been signed by the Minister, Commissioner, Chief Occupational Safety and Health Officer or an inspector;

(b) a document purporting to be a copy of a notice, certificate, drawing, record or other document, or any  extract therefor given or made under this Act or the regulations and purporting to be certified by an inspector; 

(c) a document purporting to certify the result of a test or an analysis of a sample of air and setting forth the  concentration or amount of a chemical, physical agent, or biological agent in a workplace or part thereof and purporting to be certified by an inspector or;

(d) a document purporting to certify the result of a test or an analysis of any equipment, machine, device, article, or substance and purporting to be certified by an inspector, shall be evidence of the order, decision, writing or document, and the facts appearing in the order, decision, writing or document without proof of the signature or official character of the person appearing to have signed the order or the certificate and without further proof.

The Act goes on to say, in 78 (5): In any proceeding or prosecution under this Act, a copy of an order or decision purporting to have been made under this Act or the regulations and purporting to have been signed by the Minister, Commissioner, Chief Occupational Safety and Health Officer or an inspector may be served:
(a) personally, in the case of an individual or in case of a partnership upon a partner, and in the case of a body corporate, upon the president, vice president, secretary, treasurer or a director, or upon the manager or person in charge of the workplace; or

(b) by registered letter addressed to any of the persons mentioned in Paragraph (a) at the last known place of business of the person, partnership or body corporate, as the case may be,
And the same shall be deemed to be good and sufficient service thereof.
Here ends my presentation on Part V.  I will commence Part VI by discussing the subject of Offences.

*The writer is the former General Secretary of the Clerical & Commercial Workers’ Union (CCWU) and also a former President of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana (FITUG) and a former Vice President of the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC). He served the Caribbean Congress of Labour (CCL) as Research Officer 1983 – 1998.