Section 1: In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires-

“apprentice” means a person above the age of 14 years under training at a workplace with an employer or craftsman to acquire knowledge and skill, art or trade within the period specified for the training; “award” means a judgment or decision by the High Court; “business” means a trade, undertaking, operation or establishment, whether corporate, public or private; “casual worker” means a worker contracted to work for a limited period of up to 6 months and such work shall not include those normally performed by regular workers in the workplace; “Code of Practice on Discipline” means the Code of Practice on Discipline set out in the Schedule; “Commissioner” means the Commissioner of Labour and Employment appointed by the Public Service Commission for the purpose of the administration and implementation of this Act; “contract of employment or service” means a contract or agreement containing the conditions and terms of employment or service, whether written or oral, whether expressed or implied, individually or collectively, for a definite or indefinite period, whereby a worker agrees in return for wages or other remuneration to work for an employer, employing organisation, institution or business establishment, including a contract of apprenticeship, in the public or private sector; “court” means the High Court; “day’s rest” means a period of rest comprising at least 24 consecutive hours; “disability” means a physical, sensory, mental or other impairment which has a substantial long-term adverse effect on a person’s ability to carry out normal dayto-day activities; “discrimination” includes a distinction, exclusion or preference made on the basis of colour, disability, political opinion, national extraction, marriage, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sexuality, sex, membership of a trade union, organisation or social origin, that has the effect of nullifying or impairing equality of opportunity or treatment in employment and occupation; “earnings” include wages and allowances paid to a worker by an employer and the value of food, fuel, accommodation, overtime payment or other special remuneration or benefit in kind; “employer” means a person or group of persons including a government, a public or local authority, firm, corporation or company, partnership, business, or any other entity whatsoever for whom one or more workers work, have worked or normally work under a contract of employment and includes the heirs, successors and assignees of the employer; “employers’ organisation” means an organisation of employers that has among its principal objects the regulation of collective relations between employers and workers; “environment” means a working environment or premises in which work is done by a worker; 2 3 Interpretation. “equal remuneration” means rates of remuneration established without discrimination; “federation” includes the Sierra Leone Employers’ Federation; “forced or compulsory labour” means work or service which is performed by a person – (a) under the menace of a penalty and for which the person has not offered himself voluntarily; or (b) coerced to work through the use of violence or intimidation; or by debt bondage, retention of identity papers or threats of denunciation to immigration authorities; “health” in relation to work means not merely the absence of disease or infirmity but it also includes the physical and mental elements affecting health which are directly related to safety and hygiene at work; “industrial action” means a temporary show of dissatisfaction by employees by a concerted withdrawal of labour or restriction upon the availability or quantity of labour on the part of workers, strike, slowdown or working to rule in order to protest against bad working conditions or low pay and to increase bargaining power with the employer and to force the employer to improve them by reducing productivity in a workplace, usually organised by trade unions or other organised labour; “internship” means a programme or period of work experience offered by a firm, corporation, company, organisation or government to help students and graduates gain relevant skills and experience in a particular field of work or trade or to satisfy a requirement for a qualification; 4 5 “intern” means a student or trainee who works, sometimes without pay, in order to gain work experience or satisfy requirements for a qualification; “Joint Consultative Committee” means an advisory committee appointed by the Minister to advise generally on labour matters under the law governing regulation of wages and industrial relations; “Joint National Negotiating Board” means the Joint National Negotiating Board for workers established by the law governing regulation of wages and industrial relations; “labour official” means an officer appointed by the Public Service Commission in whom the Commissioner may delegate his functions and powers generally or in part for the effective and efficient performance of his functions under this Act; “Minister” means the Minister responsible for labour and “ministry” shall be construed accordingly; “national minimum wage” means the national minimum wage established by the Minister in accordance with section 3 of the Minimum Wage Act, 1997; “night work” means work which is performed between 8:00 o’clock in the evening and 6:00 o’clock in the morning; “outworker” means a worker to whom articles or materials are given out to be made up, cleaned, washed, altered, ornamented, finished, repaired, or adapted for sale in his home or on other premises, not in the control or management of the person who gave out the articles or materials; “pay statement” means a statement issued by an employer under section 56; “person” means a person or group of persons, company, firm, corporation or any other kind of body including their agents; “probationary contract” means a contract of employment for not more than 6 months period; “Public Service Commission” means a body established under subsection (1) of section 151 of the Constitution of Sierra Leone (Act No.6 of 1991); “qualified medical practitioner or personnel” means a Government Medical Officer or a medical practitioner registered in accordance with the Medical and Dental Surgeons Act, 1966 (Act No. 3 of 1966); “redundancy” means an involuntary loss of employment by a worker due to circumstances where an employer have to let go of one or more workers due to circumstances unrelated to job performance or behavior. “remuneration” includes the ordinary, basic or minimum wage or salary and any additional emoluments whatsoever payable directly or indirectly, whether in cash or in kind, by an employer to a worker, arising out of the worker’s employment; “severance pay” means the benefit or entitlement given to a worker by his employer at the end of his contract of employment or service; “strike” means the cessation of work or refusal to work organised by a body of workers as a form of protest, typically in an attempt to gain a concession or concessions from their employer; “summary dismissal” means the discharge of a worker from an employment due to breach of dismissible offence as prescribed in section 91; “supervisor” means a worker having authority, in a workplace, to recommend the hire, transfer, suspension, layoff, recall, promotion, discharge, reward or discipline of other workers or to recommend such action; “termination of employment” means the severance of employment relationship; “trade dispute” means a disagreement or difference between employers and workers connected with the employment, the terms of employment or with the conditions of labour of workers and includes a dispute connected with any of the following - (a) terms and conditions of employment including remuneration for employment; (b) the engagement of a worker; (c) the times at which or the conditions under which work is, or is not performed; (d) the demotion, suspension or imposition of other penalty or discipline of a worker; (e) the termination of an agreement by which work is to be performed; (f) the grievance or complaint of a worker in respect of his employment; (g) the machinery for negotiating the disputes or for the settlement of a work-related dispute; 6 7 “trade union” means an organisation of workers that has among its principal objects the regulation of collective relations between workers and employers; “violence and harassment” means a range of unacceptable behaviours, practices or threats, whether a single occurrence or repeated, that aim at, result in or are likely to result in physical, psychological, sexual or economic harm, and includes gender-based violence and harassment directed against a person in the workplace; “volunteer” includes a person of working age who engages in an unpaid, noncompulsory work to produce goods or provide service for a community or organisation; “wage” means remuneration or earnings, however designated or calculated, capable of being expressed in terms of money and fixed by mutual agreement or by law, which is payable by virtue of a written or unwritten contract of employment by an employer to a worker for work done or to be done or for services rendered or to be rendered; “week” means a period of 5 working days; “workplace” means a place where workers need to be or to go by reason of their work and which is under the direct or indirect control of an employer; “worker” means a person who has entered into or works under a contract of employment or other contract with an employer, including a contract of, or for service, a contract concerning learning or a contract personally to execute any work or labour and an outworker.