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Collective bargaining is a process of determining the terms and conditions of employment in your workplace by agreement with your employees.
International Organisation of Employers (IOE)
In Zimbabwe, it takes place at the firm level or at sector level {National Employment Council-NEC}. The Constitution of Zimbabwe under Section 65 gives employees the right to collective bargaining. This is supported by s24, s25A, s74 of the Labour Act. The above implies that an employer cannot refuse to bargain and must make an effort to bargain in good faith {s75}.
Section 65 of the Constitution provides other rights such as safe labour standards and the right to a fair wage. The question is do employees have a right to demand a “living wage”? SI 33 of 2019 gave false value to the local currency versus USD. The consequence was that the local currency lost value. Further monetary policy changes through SI 42 of 2019, banned forex trading as legal tender for all local transactions. The consequences were that people lost confidence in local currency. It continues to lose value. Is it then a good store of value? The fact that the general populace is questioning its ability to store value brings with it a number of challenges for workplace collective bargaining. This is why workers have been clamoring for employers to peg their salaries against the USD. A request very few employers can afford.
Collective bargaining in the current environment is further complicated by the fact that most goods and services are tracking the exchange rate. Question is for how long and is it sustainable? Wages and Salaries are not tracking the exchange rate because it is not sustainable. There many more other challenges impacting on collecting bargaining and I list them below:
Over and above, the challenges outlined above the National Employment setup fails to recognise and accommodate the diversity of businesses, even within one sector. This includes issues such as the capacity to pay. In the next installment, we look at the strategies employers can use when collective bargaining.
Memory Nguwi is an Occupational Psychologist, Data Scientist, Speaker, & Managing Consultant- Industrial Psychology Consultants (Pvt) Ltd a management and human resources consulting firm. https://www.linkedin.com/in/memorynguwi/ Phone +263 4 481946-48/481950/2900276/2900966 or cell number +263 77 2356 361 or email: mnguwi@ipcconsultants.com or visit our website at www.ipcconsultants.com
This article was written by one of the consultants at IPC
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