EMPLOYEES' RIGHTS

Employees' inalienable rights are often not spelt out in official format in most organizations. So, from the very beginning employees are always at a loss of their standing in the organization. This inadvertently cause a disconnect between the employee individual goals and the organization mission and vision statement if there is one. Employees are often too happy to be employed than to start asking relevant questions that may later impact on his career. Most organizations run an unofficial non-disclosure policy in the sense that those employees handbook are without proviso. The country’s labour law is very explicit on major provisions and working conditions in all organizations. As far as policy is concerned, majority of hotels in the country operate without handbook.

I had a meeting with an owner of an hotel who complained bitterly of unruly staff and irresponsible general workforce. For an hotel that do not have employees' handbook and most of the staff do not have employment profile, his claim seemed preposterous. Sadly, this is the lot of many organizations especially the manufacturing industry. The employee handbook by way of definition is the book or pamphlet that embodies the workplace rules, ethics, culture, working conditions and remunerations. The employee handbook also contains the process and procedure for discipline, reward and even mode of information dissemination. We may not be able to cover the entire ideal content of an employee handbook in this piece but suffice to say the main meal has just been served.

The commonest complaint of employee is that of indiscriminate hire and fire policy of most organizations. What is however lost on employee is the advantage management has over their ignorance on this matter. There is this proviso in employee handbook called ‘at will’. This concept simply implies that employment is done at will mutually and that the management can hire and fire for any reason and sometimes for no reason, except for illegal reasons which can only be determined by the courts. Any of the followings will constitute Illegality under federal labour laws; race, creed, age, colour and any sensibilities prejudices. The unfair part is that some of these legal contentions are done after the act has been committed and that leaves the employee hanging outside to dry. Legal battles in the country are often long, laborious and very costly.

This brings us to the issue of labour unions; the umbrella body for all workers that is set up, run by workers’ dues and with a mission to protect the interest of the workforce. How far they are able to do that which they are empowered to do is a subject for another day. What is of concern here is how far they have been able to look into management excesses by unionising as many organizations as possible. I assume that the law stipulates that the process of unionisation can proceed where we have more than twenty workers. And by statistics, over 90% of the manufacturing industries meet this key condition and are still not affiliated. A decade ago and as a vice secretary of the senior staff union (then HAPSSSA), we were able to cover a lot of ground in our joint effort with the junior counterpart (NUPSHW) to unionise different hotels across the country. This is however the preliminary as workers and employers need more enlightening and radical overhaul of employees’ handbook to enable it meet present challenges.