Health and safety posters
Yes, we know, there is nothing aesthetically pleasing about a health and safety poster. No calming country scenery, remarkable retro geometrics or energetic cityscapes. However, if you wish to avoid costly fines and the ensuing legal backlash, displaying the following posters in your workplace is compulsory and will save you a lot of headaches down the road.
- The Employment Equity Act Summary chart (EEA) and The Basic Conditions of Employment summary (BCEA).
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- If you have five or more employees, then you also need to display a copy of the Occupational Health & Safety Act (OHSA) + Regulations.
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- If you have machinery other than boilers, you are also required to display a copy of Schedule D.
If your company makes contributions toward the Compensation Fund, you’ll also want to display a copy of the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act – COID. This is optional but highly recommended.
Be sure to display all summary posters where they can be easily seen by all employees in order to cement their awareness of the legislation involved.
Labour law posters and charts do not expire.
Given the recent influx of charlatans using scare tactics to bully employers into believing otherwise, this bears repeating with a big, bold visual…
The posters and charts are merely a summary of the applicable labour law and do NOT need to be replaced annually. The only time you would need to replace such a poster or chart would be when/if the government significantly amends an act. Should this occur, the government would then gazette the change stating that the changes need to be added to summary posters. Should no such statement be gazetted then no change is necessary, and you don’t need to replace your posters and charts.
Bearing this in mind, it is therefore clear that there is no need for labour law posters and charts to have the year of their creation printed on them. This is a practice used by unscrupulous companies to scare employers into spending large amounts of money on unnecessary ‘annual’ replacements.
In order to protect yourself from these shameless fearmongers, you need to know the difference between a labour broker and a labour department inspector.
A labour broker will turn up to your premises without warning or invitation and using threats of fines and penalties, insist that you buy their ‘updated’ posters.
A labour department inspector will always inform you of an upcoming inspection and will never try to sell you posters but rather advise that you update your posters should they be out of date due to a gazette change.
Lastly, but by no means least…
If at any point you’re concerned about the validity of your posters, contact a reputable supplier for confirmation as they’re the first to know when or even if amendments have been made to the relevant acts.