The Ministry of Labour, Industrial Relations and Employment is concerned with the way in which some employers are making employees redundant.
Minister Filipe Bole raised concerns on the manner in which some employers are exploiting the redundancy provisions under Part 12 of the Employment Relations Promulgation (ERP) 2007 to unfairly terminate workers.
He added that the Ministry has received an increasing number of notices from employers on their intent to use the redundancy provisions for economic, technological or structural reasons.
Whilst these provisions allow the employers to restructure the organisations, the object of the law is to provide workers facing potential or real redundancy with some degree of certainty about the problem faced by the employer and the assurance of due diligence of the employer including compensation in the event of redundancy.
Mr. Bole reminded the employers that they must provide the workers, their representatives and the Permanent Secretary not less than 30 days before carrying out the terminations, with relevant information including the reasons for the termination contemplated, the number and categories of workers likely to be affected and the period of which the terminations are intended to be carried out.
Further the law requires that the employer must give the workers or their representatives as early as possible an opportunity for consultation on measures to be taken to avert or to minimize the terminations and on measures to mitigate the adverse effects of any terminations on the workers concerned such as action to attempt to find alternative employment or re-training.
The Minister warned that the Ministry’s Compliance Service is monitoring all those employers going through the phases of redundancy and employers not following the social responsibility requirements under Part 12 of the ERP will be taken to task.
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