Professionals and companies can tap into the expertise of the Labour Relations Act for when faced with labour disputes or other issues. And as a labour relations practitioner, you can bring your expertise to educate companies on what they can do to ensure compliance.
The Labour Relations Act aims to promote economic development, social justice, labour peace and democracy in the workplace. To provide a framework within which employees and their Unions can collectively bargain with their employers regarding wages, terms and conditions and other matters of mutual interest.
It’s a Code of Good Practice on collective bargaining, industrial action and picketing and picketing regulations. That’s meant to promote order at sectorial level, employee participation in decision making in the workplace and the effective resolution of labour disputes.
Currently the Labour Relations Act is being considered by parliament and the purposes of the legislative amendments to the Act include:
- The need to address the challenges of labour market stability and wage inequality.
- To provide a stronger environment for collective bargaining and wage negotiations.
- To ensure that due processes are followed when strikes or lockouts take place.
The proposed amendments to the Labour Relations Act would introduce measures which, although designed to minimise violent strikes, would, in fact, discourage strikes in general. For example, the amendments require trade unions to hold secret ballots to decide on strikes. By individualising the decision to strike, the secret ballot fundamentally undermines the collective nature of a strike, reported Mail and Guardian online.