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THE incumbent labour laws review process should ensure amendments guarantee sustainability of business operations and create favourable conditions for foreign investors, a legal expert, Mr Passmore Nyakureba, has said. Mr Nyakureba said this during his presentation to captains of industry on the labour law review process at the 2015 Manicaland industrial relations outlook breakfast meeting organised by local consultancy agency Eve Employment Consultancy in Mutare last Thursday.
The breakfast meeting was meant to give a general viewpoint on developments in the national labour law review process as Government intends to review the country’s labour laws in line with international conventions and the new Constitution.
Mr Nyakureba said over the years, Zimbabwe has had a long history of labour law promulgations, amendments and repeals.
“In any country, labour laws can impoverish or empower it. From pre-independence, a quick look at labour law amendments from the Master and Servant Act was the Industrial Conciliation Act of the 1930s, which was also further amended upon gaining independence in the Employment Act (1980) and the Minimum Wages Act (1980), Labour Relations Act (1985) and the 2002 and 2005 Labour Acts (28:01) amendments.
“All these confirm the notion that reforms were often inspired by the political outlook,” said Mr Nyakureba.
He, however, said it was high time Government amended laws from a business developmental perspective guided by coherence with other existing policies, which is what the proposed 13 labour amendments intend to achieve.
“As business, you want a sustainable approach to business and this can only be guaranteed by labour laws and other industrial policies. The labour laws should promote labour market flexibility and should not be incoherent with other existing industrial policies. The amendment of Acts has always been an egg and hen situation where it is always a politics versus economy debate.
“Given our unstable industrial outlook where capacity utilisation of our manufacturing sector further went down from 39 percent to 36 percent last year, there is definitely need to ensure stability with laws that will protect industrialists to a greater extent,” said Mr Nyakureba.
He said the provisions of the 2002 and 2005 Labour Act amendments placed too much unrestricted rights in the hands of the employee. This, he added, was currently chocking industry by means of hefty labour lawsuits sizable enough to cripple most companies to their demise.
Mr Nyakureba said among the 13 proposed amendments the most critical would be on the right to collective bargaining, which will consider levels of productivity by a company in bargaining and on streamlining the labour dispute settlement system through the creation of an autonomous labour dispute settlement to avoid the current labour politics being played out by the National Employment Council.
Participants at the meeting agreed that it was important for industrialists to get organised and strengthen their federations in the wake of the growing and very vocal workers’ unions across the country.
One of the co-ordinators of the workshop, Mr Josphat Rushinga, said labour amendments were the missing link to activate the economic blueprint Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation.
He said devoid of supporting labour laws more company closures would be the order of the day. A Government arbitrator, Mr Charles Charindeguta, said labour law amendments were necessary, given the harsh economic times.
He said in some cases it would be obvious that employees would be out to make quick money, which is why loose hanging discrepancies should be amended for economic growth.
Online Reporter