Ouagadougou: The Council of Ministers has adopted a groundbreaking draft law aimed at significantly reforming labor practices to enhance worker protection and regulate practices that have been identified as potential sources of abuse.

According to Burkina Information Agency, the proposed legislation introduces significant changes, starting with the regulation of placement and temporary work activities. It mandates that workers in these roles receive equal pay to their counterparts in user companies when they hold equivalent qualifications. Additionally, the legislation prohibits employers with vested interests in placement or temporary work companies from entering into contracts with those companies, addressing potential conflicts of interest.

The draft law also addresses workplace harassment by redefining sexual harassment and considering psychological harassment, thus enabling more effective legal recourse against offenders. In a bid to curb the misuse of precarious contracts, the legislation restricts the renewal and conclusion of fixed-term contracts with the same employee and standardizes their maximum duration at two years for all workers, thereby eliminating previous discrimination against local workers.

For non-national non-resident workers, the reform stipulates that visas for open-ended contracts must be renewed every two years, aiming to ensure more stringent oversight of foreign expertise utilization. Additionally, the text reframes force majeure as a condition for technical unemployment rather than an automatic, unpaid suspension of employment contracts.

The reforms further deter unjustified dismissals by increasing the compensation for unfair dismissal from 18 to 24 months' salary. Moreover, the duration of breastfeeding leave for female employees is extended from 14 to 15 months, aligning it with the leave duration for female civil servants.