adminLabour Matters Davis Ndumiso Sibanda
MANAGEMENT of labour relations has presently become one of the costly issues for organisations. Large sums of money are being put into labour relations management and those organisations that have not invested in effective labour relations management are paying a fortune in labour unrest costs and related litigation. A few months back, the chief executive of one organisation instructed his managers to put workers on short-time work and pay workers half their wages to cut costs. The workers objected but the plan was however implemented and workers litigated as guided by their trade union.
Last week, I met the chief executive having lost the case at arbitration due to failure to follow procedure and the employer has to pay workers up to four hundred thousand for wrongful reduction of wages over a long period.
After sending invitations to many human resources practitioners to attend our 2014 Labour Update, it was interesting to note it was one of the topics they wanted us to cover. Most of the issues are new for human resources practitioners and others are known and have been taken for granted only to discover they are complex when trying to apply the law.
Amongst areas that are new for many labour relations practitioners, is community relations where communities now demand to be part of any organisation that does business in the community. A human resources manager in the mining industry told me of a case where he was called by the local headman and chief and told that they felt insulted because the new general manager was hired without consulting them and further, when he started work, he never bothered to pay a courtesy call to the local chiefs.
The matter became complex sucking in job seekers, interference with discipline and unreasonable conditions of service demands were made by local labour. The challenge was managed, however at a huge cost to the mine.
Another human resources manager raised the issue of short time which has been a permanent feature in our industries for years. Many employers are not sure on who to approach, the NEC or Labour officers or to secure agreement at Works Council or to go for arbitration.
One employer asked the question, how to put managerial employees on short time since they fall outside the NEC. It is clear from questions raised by human resources managers that without refresher training, many human resources practitioners could easily get it wrong leaving organisations in huge costs.
Another problematic area for human resources practitioners is management of delayed wages, a subject I have dealt with in one of my previous articles. It looks manageable but can cause grief for an employer when workers litigate and energies are spent in litigation rather than doing the little work that is available. In one organisation, a dismissed worker who was owed back pay amounting to $14,000 litigated soon after dismissal.
The employer offered a payment plan which the worker rejected. Parties went for arbitration and the arbitrator ordered the employer to pay the worker within 30 days. After 30 days, the worker registered the award leading to the seizure of equipment used in production by remaining workers. To save property, the employer quickly paid using the little working capital that was there leaving the business worse off. The question is could the employer have handled this case better?
One of the most feared subject is forecasting 2014 wages such that many NECs have delayed wage negotiations due to fear by both employers and unions. Both parties in most cases would rather go for arbitration and avoid the risk of being blamed for agreeing on too low or too high wages. To any reasonable employer and trade union, it is obvious that indices that were used in past negotiations might not be very useful as parties use the current obtaining conditions. The challenge is defining the current conditions using the eyes of a reasonable employer and eyes of a reasonable trade unionist.
A few days ago, I got an e-mail from a mining house requesting that the Labour update should cover recruitment of locals versus recruiting nationally. He was asking how the organisation could serve local interests without offending the Labour Act.
While this subject has been an issue all over the world, in Zimbabwe it is new requiring careful management as guided by the Labour Act and the constitution of Zimbabwe.
Other areas that take centre stage include Collective Job Action management, contract variation, benefits variation, retrenchment, flexi-working hours, discipline handling, conciliation, arbitration, hiring of foreign workers and transferring or relocating Zimbabwean works to other countries.
All these topical matters mean that human resources practitioners and chief executives have to refresh themselves through either in-house training or attending public programmes facilitated by experts in the field of labour relations management otherwise they will find themselves managing in unstable labour relations environments and in worse cases they could lose their jobs.
Online Reporter