Labour workshop set for tomorrow

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A LABOUR law and industrial relations indaba is set for Bulawayo tomorrow amid revelations relations between employers and employees are getting increasingly sour due to some firms failing to pay their workers on time.

A LABOUR law and industrial relations indaba is set for Bulawayo tomorrow amid revelations relations between employers and employees are getting increasingly sour due to some firms failing to pay their workers on time. OWN CORRESPONDENT

The one-day workshop, organised by NCS Labour Relations and Training Consultancy, a private concern, will focus on issues of dynamics of industrial relations machinery with a particular bias towards retrenchments.

According to organisers, Zimbabwe is currently undergoing a major shift in its industrial relations as affected by the macroeconomic environment which has been gradually underperforming.

“There has been strong advocacy for productivity-based remuneration and for adjudicators to issue judgments which guarantee sustainability and competitiveness of companies.

Given this arrangement, it most certainly has implications on labour, business and the model of their operations,” workshop organisers said in a statement.

“This forum is targeted for legislators, human resources practitioners, arbitrators, captains of industry, labour, local authorities and all other recipients and generators of the labour legislation.”

This workshop follows the survey conducted by Industrial Psychological Consultants, titled, “Distress and other mental health problems in the Zimbabwean working population,” sought to establish the state of wellbeing of individuals – ability to recognise their abilities, cope with the normal stresses of life, work productively and make a contribution to their communities in line with World Health Organisation guidelines.

The survey revealed that a large proportion of Zimbabwe’s workforce was depressed and losing hope for a better future as economic hardships bit, with companies losing out as much as $100 million yearly in productivity losses.

It also established that nearly 30% of the working population, from the surveyed 707 employees across all economic sectors, was depressed while 43% was distressed.

The survey revealed that about 18% of the workforce battled anxiety symptoms for a variety of work-related reasons.

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