Casual labourers claim paid leave

We have a company that deals in purchase and export of agricultural produce. During the harvest season, which lasts for four months every year, we recruit casual labourers to pack the agricultural produce in sacks and load the sacks in trucks ready for transport to the export ports. In the recruitment process we prefer casual labourers who have worked for us in the past because they have training in doing the job. A few of our casual labourers who have worked for us in the past two harvest seasons have lodged an application for paid annual leave claiming that since they have worked for us for a total of eight months over two harvest seasons, they are entitled to paid annual leave. Are these casual labourers right in raising such a claim.
ML, Shinyanga

As a general rule set out under section 29(1) of the Employment and Labour Relations Act [Cap.366 R.E 2019], an employee who works for the employer for less than 6 months in a year is not entitled to a paid annual leave. A casual labourer is entitled to a paid annual leave only if he or she works for the same employer for a total period exceeding 6 months in a year. Since your casual labourers worked only for 4 months in a year, they are not entitled to a paid leave. The 6 months benchmark which is used to determine the right to a paid annual leave is not the aggregate of the period the employee has worked for the same employer over a period of 2 years; it is an aggregate of the period the employee has worked for the employer for a particular year.

Had you recruited casual labourers twice a year and they worked for an aggregate of a period exceeding 6 months during that year, the claim of your casual labourer would have been valid based on section 29(2) of the Employment and Labour Relations Act.