A Right to Refuse Is Only Worth Something If Workers Can Afford to Use It

Imagine being told to enter a mine shaft you believe is unsafe, operate machinery with a defective safety mechanism, or continue working in a building where the conditions put your life at risk. You know something is wrong. Your supervisor knows you are concerned. But you also know that refusing an instruction could cost you your job, and that your family depends on the money you earn.

Zimbabwe has now given workers a clearer legal answer to that dilemma. Whether it has given them the practical power to act on it is another question.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa has signed the Occupational Safety and Health Act, 2026, introducing an explicit right for workers to refuse work that presents an imminent danger to their health or safety when the danger has not been made safe.

The legislation was published on 16 October as Act 7 of 2026, according to ZimLII’s legislative records.

The Sunday Mail, reporting on the new law on 25 October, highlighted the protection against dismissal and other punishment for workers exercising their occupational safety and health rights.Section 14(1) states:

“Every worker shall have the right to refuse to do work which is likely to cause imminent danger to his or her safety or health which has not been rendered safe.”

Section 14(5) protects workers against dismissal and other prejudicial measures when exercising their occupational safety and health functions.

The provisions establish a legal principle that should have been uncontroversial long ago: a person’s employment should not require them to gamble with their life.

Yet the timing makes this law particularly important.

Zimbabwe is introducing stronger statutory protections against dangerous work while its recorded workplace fatalities are moving in the wrong direction.

According to figures from the National Social Security Authority reported by Zimbabwe Situation on 10 October, workplace injuries increased from 4,242 in 2024 to 4,414 in 2025.

Fatalities rose from 70 to 78 over the same period.

By June 2026, 2,442 disabling injuries had been reported, compared with 2,263 during the corresponding period in 2025.

Reported fatalities had increased from 40 to 52. These are recorded cases, and the actual burden may be greater where accidents go unreported, particularly in informal and small-scale workplaces.

Behind those numbers are people who went to work and did not return home as expected. There are families dealing with lost income, medical expenses, disability and bereavement. There are workers whose injuries may prevent them from ever returning to their previous occupations. The consequences extend beyond the factory floor, mine or construction site where the incident occurred.

Workplace safety is often discussed as though it were an administrative concern, something for inspectors to record and employers to address when they have finished dealing with production targets. But a workplace accident can destroy a household’s financial security in a single afternoon. Preventing such accidents is a labour right, a public-health concern and an economic necessity.

The new law attempts to change the balance of responsibility.

Under Section 13, employers must provide and maintain working environments that are safe and without unacceptable risks to workers’ health. They must also establish and maintain occupational safety and health management systems. Where a breach of these obligations causes an injury, the legislation provides for criminal liability, including a fine of up to US$5,000, imprisonment for up to two years, or both.

The importance of these provisions lies in their emphasis on prevention. A worker should not have to be injured before an employer takes a hazard seriously. The purpose of a safety system is to identify risks, address them and prevent predictable harm, rather than document the circumstances in which someone was hurt.The legislation also gives workers a more formal role in that process. Employees are entitled to information about safety measures, appropriate training during paid working hours and consultation on matters affecting their health and safety. They can propose preventive measures and contribute their views on workplace risks. Employers with at least five workers at a workplace must allow the election or appointment of safety and health representatives in each section or department.

Where two or more representatives are appointed, the employer must establish one or more safety and health committees, with the costs borne by the employer.

These provisions matter because workers frequently see hazards before management does. They know which machine has been malfunctioning, which protective equipment is missing, which ventilation system no longer works and which procedure is routinely ignored to save time. A safety system that treats their observations as an inconvenience is a system designed to discover its mistakes after someone has been injured.Giving workers a formal voice is therefore more than a concession to organised labour. It can improve the quality of information available to employers and help prevent incidents before they occur.But there is a difficult reality that no statutory provision can wish away. The right to refuse dangerous work is most valuable when the person exercising it has enough security to withstand the consequences.

For a worker with savings, alternative employment prospects and a supportive union, challenging an unsafe instruction may be manageable. For someone living from one pay cheque to the next, with school fees, rent and dependants to support, the calculation can be much harsher. A person may understand the danger perfectly well and still decide that refusing the work is an economic risk they cannot afford.

The law’s protection against dismissal and other punishment is intended to address that problem. Its effectiveness will depend on whether workers know their rights, whether employers respect them and whether complaints can be investigated before retaliation destroys a worker’s income.

A right that exists on paper but cannot safely be exercised remains a fragile protection.

This is particularly important in sectors where the consequences of unsafe conditions can be catastrophic. Mining, construction and manufacturing all involve hazards that require more than a general instruction to be careful. Zimbabwe’s history of mining disasters, including the Kamandama disaster at Wankie Colliery in 1972, demonstrates the lasting human cost of workplace failures. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions has repeatedly called for stronger occupational safety protections, pointing to dangerous conditions in mining and the problems faced by workers who lack appropriate personal protective equipment. In its 2024 statement on occupational safety, the union also warned that accidents in the informal economy often go unrecorded.The new Act repeals the Factories and Works Act and the Pneumoconiosis Act, bringing workplace safety and occupational disease regulation into a consolidated framework. It establishes an Occupational Safety and Health Department within NSSA and provides for a Medical Bureau of Occupational Diseases. The department is tasked with enforcing standards, recording workplace injuries and occupational diseases, supporting research and administering accident-prevention and workers’ compensation programmes.

That institutional structure could make a difference. But creating an enforcement department is the beginning of the work, not evidence that enforcement will be effective.Inspectors need the resources to visit workplaces, investigate complaints, identify recurring violations and follow up on corrective orders. Workers need accessible ways to report unsafe conditions without exposing themselves to retaliation. Employers who repeatedly disregard safety requirements must face consequences that are sufficiently credible to change their behaviour.

The state must also confront the problem of underreporting. If injuries in informal and small-scale workplaces remain largely invisible, official statistics will provide an incomplete picture of the risks workers face. A legal framework cannot protect people whom its enforcement system rarely reaches.

The Sunday Mail reported that Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions president Florence Taruvinga welcomed the new legislation, particularly the enforcement mechanisms and the expanded powers of occupational safety inspectors. Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions secretary-general Kennias Shamuyarira also described the Act as a landmark development, arguing that it provides a stronger basis for workers and their representatives to demand preventive measures and safer working conditions. Their welcome reflects the importance of the change. It also points to the central question now facing the government: whether the institutions responsible for enforcing the law will be able to deliver what it promises.Employers, meanwhile, should resist the temptation to treat the new provisions as another compliance exercise. A safety committee that exists only in minutes, protective equipment that is purchased but not maintained, and training that workers attend without being allowed to challenge unsafe instructions will not prevent accidents. The law’s value depends on how workplace decisions change.

There is also a limit to what the right to refuse work can accomplish. Section 14(1) concerns work likely to cause imminent danger that has not been made safe. It should not be misrepresented as a blanket right to decline any task a worker dislikes or considers inconvenient. The legislation also places duties on workers to take reasonable care, cooperate with safety requirements and report accidents or hazardous situations.The point is to make work safer, not to make the employment relationship unworkable. Employers have a legitimate interest in production, and workers have responsibilities within their jobs. But neither interest can justify requiring a person to face an unresolved, imminent threat to their health or safety.

Ultimately, the law establishes a principle that is easy to endorse and harder to enforce: a worker’s life must count for more than the urgency of a production target.Zimbabwe has had workplace safety rules before. The rise in recorded fatalities shows why passing another law, however important, cannot be the final measure of success. The test will be whether the next worker who identifies a dangerous condition can refuse the task, report the problem and return to work after it has been made safe, without having to choose between personal survival and earning a living.

The government should publish regular data on inspections, violations, corrective orders, prosecutions, workplace injuries and deaths. Trade unions should help workers understand how to invoke the new protections. Employers should treat safety complaints as warnings to be investigated rather than acts of insubordination. And NSSA must demonstrate that its enforcement powers translate into safer workplaces.A worker should not need exceptional courage to ask for a functioning safety mechanism, proper protective equipment or a workplace free from an immediate threat to life. Those should be ordinary conditions of employment.

The Occupational Safety and Health Act gives workers a stronger legal basis to demand them. That is progress worth recognising.

But the real achievement will come when refusing dangerous work is no longer an act of desperation, and when a person can insist on going home alive without fearing that the insistence itself will cost them their livelihood.