BY lvan lsraelstam, Chief Executive of Labour Law Management Consulting. He may be contacted on (011) 888-7944 or 0828522973 or on e-mail address:
Legal procedure makes it immensely difficult for a party at arbitration to win its case without witnesses because the testimony of witnesses normally forms the crucial core of the evidence.
The evidence that the arbitrator assesses for purposes of deciding the case falls into three broad categories. Viz:
While all three types of evidence are very important the testimony of witnesses is the most crucial of all. This is because
By Liane McGowan, founder of Happy Monday CC
A lack of teamwork, lack of acknowledgement by superiors, high pressure environments and cultural, religious and racial issues lead to a demotivated workforce, even when employees are being remunerated well. As an employer, it is essential to ensure that employees are properly motivated, driving them to work productively, leading to increased sales and staff retention.
While physical health campaigns are the norm in South Africa, employees are still suffering from depression, poor communication skills, and are feeling undervalued; this leads to a lack of cohesiveness and poor interpersonal relationships. Organisations should consider a shift in
Read more: Get your employees smiling and invigorate your business
Don’t miss the morning seminar on “De-siloing” and synergizing of HRM and ER with
Prof. Barney Jordaan in Cape Town on 2 July 2015. Click here.
Written by Prof. Barney Jordaan
The objectives of the employment relationship
According to John Budd, the objectives of the employment relationship are efficiency, equity, and voice - elements that he regards as imperatives in democratic and moral societies. The ideal employment relationship is one that results in the efficient production of goods or services, provides employees with equitable and fair conditions and circumstances of employment and ensures that employees have both an individual and collective voice in deciding issues of concern to them.
Budd asserts that the rights and responsibilities of workers and their employers go significantly beyond typical HRM concerns relating to productivity, competitiveness, economic prosperity, the effective use of scarce resources, and the like (concerns that he groups together under the shorthand heading of “efficiency”). In particular, he states, employees are entitled to fair treatment (“equity”) and opportunities to have input into decisions that affect their daily lives (“voice”). Equity concerns fairness in both the distribution of economic rewards (such as wages and benefits) and the administration of employment policies (such as fair treatment, non-discrimination and protection against unfair dismissal). Voice is the ability to have meaningful employee input into decisions that affect them both individually and collectively. This includes not only freedom of association and speech, but also direct and indirect participation in workplace decision-making. The ideal is to find a “balance”between the three elements. (He defines “balance”as the search for arrangements that enhance one or more dimensions without undue sacrifices in other dimensions.)
The objectives are complementary: efficiency is maximised in environments where employees are treated equitably and are engaged (i.e., given “voice”). Yet management and labour typically regard these objectives as mutually exclusive. The traditional divide between HRM and ER contributes to this.
The HRM / ER divide
Employment relations is defined as the field of study involving not only union-management relations, but all aspects of the employment relationship. HR management involves a series of integrated decisions about the employment relationship that influence the effectiveness of the organisation and its employees. These definitions reflect both the overlap and possible convergence of these two fields of study.
The following commonalities exist between the two fields:
Read more: From silos to synergy: HRM & ER as two sides of the same coin
There have been many legal developments in the employment arena lately that employers must take note of to ensure that they can defend challenges at the CCMA or Labour Court. Here are some tips for pre-emptively dealing with some of the new issues as well as some recurring ones.
Contracts of employment
A contract of employment need not be in writing to be enforceable. The fact that a prospective employee has not signed his/her contract, does not mean that an employment relationship does not exist.
A contract of employment can also come into being even if
Despite the fact that labour law favours employees, employers need to understand that:
• Labour law does allow employers to dismiss employees.
• The CCMA does uphold the dismissal of employees unless the dismissal is unfairly implemented.
• Thus employers need to understand and accept the difference between fair and unfair dismissal in order to avoid the employee being reinstated.
So while the law does allow dismissals it also requires the employer to
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