Chronicle Editor
Leonard Ncube in Victoria Falls
PUBLIC Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister, Dr Sekai Nzenza, has said social dialogue between the employers, workers and Government is critical in establishing a solid foundation for industrial transformation.
Speaking at the recent Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries here, she said the transitional phase of an economy has challenges that require collective efforts by partners in the social dialogue.
She said challenges such as foreign currency shortages, rising inflation and constant erosion of incomes tend to create conflict in industrial relations, which gets distorted unless partners find common ground.
“Accordingly, dialogue at national level that seeks to address economic fundamentals becomes imperative as there is a need for social dialogue and a mechanism to balance interests of employees and employers,” said Minister Nzenza.
She said Government will continue to modernise labour laws to improve ease of doing business as enunciated in the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP). Dr Nzenza said Government’s actions seek to achieve a decent work agenda and this will be implemented through the Tripartite Negotiating Forum (TNF). She said the institutionalisation of TNF was quite timely as social dialogue has a critical role in this transitional phase when the nation is working to restore macro-economic stability and set a platform for economic recovery and sustainable growth.
“Reforms will streamline the dispute settlement system by clearly setting out the powers, roles and jurisdiction of conciliators. This is to address the issue of protracted procedures related to labour disputes, which were proving costly to business,” said Dr Nzenza.
She said retrenchment regulations will be further streamlined to ensure that there are set timeframes within, which all processes and procedures should be finalised. To further improve the efficiency of the labour administration system, Government is creating an Electronic Case Management System aimed at improving and easing the dispute resolution system.
Minister Nzenza said the system will allow for monitoring of cases and improve service delivery through reduction of time taken to resolve cases. The minister said the Labour Amendment Bill will be finalised later this year to address some issues left out by the Amendment Act Number 5 of August 2015 to do with issues of retrenchment procedures, contracts of employment and dispute settlement system.
She challenged the business sector to continue cooperating with Government in the ongoing labour law reform process. The minister also implored businesses to exercise restraint on price increases as the country seeks to collectively stabilise the economy.
She said constructive engagement between Government and organised labour is going to pave way for conclusion of a social contract to address current socio economic challenges in a holistic manner. — @ncubeleon
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