The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has said there is no relationship between lowering the protection for workers and economic growth, a rebuke to the hurried amendments to the Labour law.
BY TATIRA ZWINOIRA
Speaking to NewsDay last week, director for the ILO office in Zimbabwe, Hopolang Phororo, said economies tended to take that route when faced with challenges.
“Countries, when faced with a weakening economic outlook, tend to introduce legislative changes that reduce the level of protection for workers. The argument being that such changes would help stimulate economic growth and job creation, but a recent ILO study showed no link between less protection for workers and stronger growth,” Phororo said.
“The relative strength of labour legislation in a specific country does not affect employment and unemployment rates — neither negatively nor positively.”
President Robert Mugabe last week signed into law amendments to the Labour Act that were rushed through with other social partners — business and labour — accusing government of ignoring their inputs.
The amendments were necessitated by the July 17 Supreme Court ruling that gave employers the leeway to terminate workers’ contracts on three months’ notice.
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Over 25 000 workers were resultantly retrenched across all sectors of the economy.
Business has been arguing that the labour legislation was archaic and does not promote investments.
Phororo said another frontier to improve Zimbabwe’s national competitiveness was to reduce bottlenecks around starting a business.
These include improving processes for getting business permits, cost of utilities particularly water and electricity, strengthening property rights, access to credit, protecting investors rights, tax system, contract enforcement systems and insolvency resolution.
“Regulations can be designed in a manner that encourages economic growth, job creation, equality and social cohesion. These balanced labour legislation policies are more likely to be achieved where effective social dialogue between government, employers and workers can help find the way forward,” Phororo said.
She said labour market flexibility and employment security, acceptable to both parties involved (employers and workers) was achieved when labour input could be easily and quickly adjusted to the needs of labour demand by assuring, at a reasonable level of protection for workers.
“The social partners are encouraged to deal with issues that relate to national competitiveness and productivity. National capacity utilisation remains high and Zimbabwe’s products are expensive in relation to imports,” Phororo said.
“A key factor for productive growth is the availability of skilled workers and employees (discussion on the reform of national training policies and systems), progressive workplace practices based on good working conditions, continuous workplace learning, good labour-management relations and respect for workers’ rights.”
She said policies should be aimed at improving the employability of workers and assisting in their re-employment in either regular or subsidised jobs and assuring a decent income to workers and households in periods of joblessness and earnings loss on the one hand, and at providing labour with the desired skills and adaptability on the other.
