NHRC officials with employees of delivery firms during the meeting.
Doha, Qatar: The National Human Rights Committee organised an interactive meeting with delivery companies as part of the campaign to prevent heat stress risks.
The campaign launched by the NHRC will run from August 1 to September 1 to raise awareness of the impact of heat stress in the work environment on workers’ rights to life, physical, mental and psychological health, especially workers in the construction, industry and delivery services sectors.
During the interactive meeting, two working papers were presented. The first paper was presented by Hala Al Ali, the legal expert on the committee, and Santosh, the official at the Indian Community Office of the NHRC, presented the second paper.
The first paper explained the provisions of Labour Law No. 14 of 2004 and its amendments, the conditions of occupational safety and health to guarantee the right to a safe and healthy work environment free from heat stress. It obliges employers to protect their workers from heat stress in their workplaces, inform them of the dangers of heat stress and the means of prevention, and take the necessary precautions to protect workers from heat stress and diseases resulting from it.
In addition, employers would not charge their workers any sums of money in return for providing the necessary precautions to protect them during work from any injuries or diseases that may arise from heat stress. The law confirmed that the Ministry of Labor has the right to issue a decision to close the workplace in whole or in part if the employer refuses to take the necessary precautions. The law prohibits the worker from doing or refraining from taking any action aimed at obstructing the implementation of the employer’s instructions regarding preserving his health, ensuring his safety, or not using the protective equipment and clothes prepared for him.
The first working paper indicated that the law mandated the Ministry of Labor to issue the necessary decisions to organize the devices concerned with occupational health and safety in the establishments, to define and organize the services and precautions needed to protect workers during work from work hazards, machines, their means and levels, and to regulate means of prevention from occupational diseases.
The paper dealt with Ministerial Resolution No. (17) of 2021 regarding the necessary precautions to protect workers from heat stress, which it considered an integrated and comprehensive protection umbrella based on the Qatari constitution and Labor Law No. 14 of 2004 and its amendments. Where the decision specified working hours for works that are performed under the sun or in open workplaces and in other than shaded and ventilated workplaces during the period from June 1 to September 15 of each year, so that it is not permissible to start work in the period from 10 am until 3:30 pm.
The second working paper dealt with how heat stress occurs and ways to prevent it. The paper indicated that heat stress can occur in workplaces that involve hard physical work and in hot and humid environments that can result in significant heat stress for workers. The paper indicated that to maintain the body’s internal temperature at around 37 degrees Celsius, there must be a balance between the amount of heat generated inside the body and the heat transferred to or from it. The paper also dealt with the responsibilities of companies to protect their workers from the dangers of heat stress during the summer.
