WINDHOEK– The Namibia Employers Federation (NEF), which represents the interests of more than 4 000 employers ion the country, says its members are against the laborious difficulty with which they dismiss employees.
NEF Secretary General, Tim Parkhouse, is worried that the procedures involved in dismissing underperforming and ill-disciplined workers deters employers from employing workers permanently.
He called for relaxation on the dismissal procedures and said that there must be a balance on “how to get rid of someone without a hassle.”
“This issue has been raised since the mid 1990s, the cost of firing somebody affects the hiring,” Parkhouse said.
“Obviously no employer wants to get rid of good workers, but when it comes to dismissing those that underperform or misbehave, the dismissal process is long and extremely difficult, in some cases employers even end up paying huge sums of money or in some cases not even getting rid of the employee.”
Parkhouse added, “Of course we do not want to go back to pre-independence where you could hire and fire and workers had no rights, but at the moment our laws in many respects are too inflexible.”
Labour Commissioner, Bro-Mathew Shinguadja, yesterday differed with Parkhouse in this regard and accused employers of wanting to take the easy route when it comes dismissing workers. Shinguadja challenged NEF to come up with other ways to dismiss workers if it has a problem with the current laws.
“They must forget it, the era of employers being superior is gone. He must tell us which form he wants. Employers should understand that we live in a democratic society and that you cannot just wake up and dismiss somebody; that was done during the colonial era. Our system is simple and modelled according to international standards which states that employees should be given reasons explaining their alleged misconduct and at the same time be accorded an opportunity to explain themselves,” Shinguadja said.
Shinguadja accused employers of being profit driven instead of taking care of the welfare of those they employ. Parkhouse warned that employers will be reluctant to hire workers on permanent basis if they know that they will struggle to get rid of them.
Parkhouse also spoke against employers who employ workers for long periods on contractual basis.
This is not acceptable; contracts should not go on indefinitely, said Parkhouse.
With labour brokers sprouting up in numbers in recent years, Parkhouse said the brokers can be made use of, provided they handle their clients decently.
“Labour brokers are good for businesses to bring in extra staff at peak periods, another benefit is that people are constantly on the move so they always have employment and where they perform they are roped in on a permanent basis,” said Parkhouse.
The problem according to Parkhouse:”Too many labour brokers in the past treated workers badly and workers did not benefit in any way.”
“Labour brokers should be controlled but not over regulated because in the past there were too many fly by nights who treated their workers badly,” said Parkhouse.
Shinguadja said the concept of labour broking is illegal in Namibia and that there are plans to efficiently regulate the practice.
“These are just people who found a space to make money from others but they are not recognised by law. They call themselves all sorts of names such as labour consultants, human resource consultants and some even register close corporations,” he said.
Shinguadja said the labour commission is working on ways to regulate the labour broking industry to ensure that they are taxed accordingly, do not mistreat job seekers and to ensure that they are qualified.