via Government working speedily on labour reforms — Bimha – The Zimbabwe Independent 10 October 2014
Government is expeditiously working on reforming the country’s labour laws which business has criticised as inflexible.
Launching the 2014 Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries manufacturing sector survey on Wednesday, Industry and Commerce minister Mike Bimha said government was involved in labour law reforms.
“I am glad to advise that we are also looking at the issue of labour legislation reform with great speed,” Bimha said. “And I would like to assure you that as we go into this coming year, we should be seeing more achieved in that regard.”
He added that government was currently looking into submissions made by business organisations on the issue of labour reforms.
Bimha said he had been mandated by the government to come up with a comprehensive analysis on the state of industry in Zimbabwe.
The report, Bimha said, touched on all sectors of industry in terms of capacity utilisation and the specific challenges each sub-sector is facing.
He said he had presented the report to cabinet with a number of recommendations.
“The majority of the recommendations that were put forward were taken on board by cabinet,” Bimha said.
He added that the recommendations that had not been adopted by cabinet would be discussed with captains of industry to ensure that they will eventually be adopted after discussion.
Bimha said the recommendations coming from government to business would not be made public until the parties sit down to discuss them.
He said that two advisory committees had been set up. One committee, he said, focused on imports and the other which focused on the ease and costs of doing business in Zimbabwe.
Bimha said the two committees officially handed their reports to him on Monday adding that he will soon present the two reports to cabinet.
COMMENTS
Zimbabwe’s labour laws hinged too much on the post colonial mentality of redressing the colonial binary of white capital vs black labour. As the state took a protectionist approach towards labour it exposed capital to all battering and abuse forgetting that capital is the goose that lay the golden egg. Zimbabwe’s labour laws protects workers at the expense of the employers. Resultantly most employers are stark with an incompetent, inefficient and unproductive labour force that is overpaid and does not have the company at heart. They dont get fired as the Labour act of 1985 is well behind them. The company will be sued and milked into bankruptcy. This has led to investors running away to other countries. SA is going down the same road with Cosatu and other trade unions gaining political influence and making unscrupulous and unsustainable demands on capital in the name of protecting workers. Labour reforms are long overdew. They need to strike a balance between protecting the workers rights and without creating a worker that bullies the employer and vice versa. The state must avoid to lean to one side of the scale.
Couldn’t agree more. Protecting unproductive labour in a declining economy only serves to accelerate the decline of businesses that should instead be empowered to hire the labour that will drive the company with hunger and enthusiasm.