Who is an employer?

An employer is a person or organization or government agency responsible for hiring, supervising, and managing employees. They provide work, pay agreed wages/salaries, ensure safe working conditions, and comply with employment laws, upholding both operational and legal responsibilities toward their staff.

Who is an employee?

An employee is a person who has entered into a contract of service/employment or an apprenticeship contract. It includes all persons employed in private entities such as NGOs or Companies, Government workers or those employed in local government. It, however, does not include persons employed by the Uganda Peoples’ Defense Forces (UPDF) or Uganda Police Forces (UPF).

What is a contract of service?

A contract of service is any contract, whether written or oral, express or implied, where a person agrees in return for remuneration to work for an employer. A contract of apprenticeship is also a contract of service.

If I do not have a written contract, can I still be considered an employee under the law?

Yes, a contract of service (or a contract for employment) can be written or oral.

It can also be express. For example, where the person expressly tells another to work for him or her for pay. It can also be implied; this is where there was no written contract and there was no oral communication that someone is working for another, but the relationship the two people establish is such that one works for the other and gets paid, or expects to be paid.

All the above situations give rise to what can be termed as an employer-employee relation.

What is a person is a casual employee, do they have the same rights as other employees?

The Employment Act defines a ‘casual employee’ as a person who works on a daily basis where payment of wages is due at the completion of each day’s work.

From the definition above, the casual laborer is a person working and being paid on a daily rate. It does not matter what the person is doing. Such a person has the same rights as other workers for as long as he/she is still employed or have rights accrued from the employment.