D.D Phiri

Labour laws must be just

On the front page of The Nation dated December 18 2014, we read ‘Work or no pay, Goodall tells ACB’.

On the next page, a university lecturer says: “Withholding of wages or salaries is monetary punishment which is illegal. The law only permits to withhold wages when there are damages caused by employees or one has absented himself or herself from work without reasons”.

Whoever drafted these labour laws probably belonged to the socialist brotherhood of the old school.

This school advocated paying everyone according to his or her need, not according to contribution. This philosophy was practised for nearly 70 years by the Soviet Union and its satellites. Doomsday came; they collapsed like a pocket of playing cards before a whirlwind.

If the labour laws in Malawi are not changed in time, this country will die and decay. Paying people for staying idle has already cost government coffers dearly.

The Law Commission should be mandated to revise labour laws so that they strike a fair balance between the interest of the employer and those of the worker. If I am to believe what the university lecturer said as cited above, labour laws are grossly unfair to the employer because they are not backed by reason or philosophy.

Theologians or philosophers dated back to antiquity have taught that he who won’t work shall not eat. Only people subjected to infirmity or lack of opportunity for work deserved to be given food or money gratis.

He or she who is able-bodied, but chooses not to work for whatever reason places no obligation on other members of society to feed or pay him.

Trade unions such as we have here of the adversarial type started in Britain during the Industrial Revolution. At first, employers and government were hostile to them as damaging the economy by restraining trade.

When finally trade unions were allowed to operate freely and engage in strikes, it was on condition that during the days they were on strike the employer could legally withhold payment of wages. Since the workers withhold labour, what was the employer going to pay them for?

Apparently, someone thinks withholding labour is not causing damage. Suppose you are engaged in the fish business and having caught a canoe full, the employee refuses to take them to the market, and they rot. Is this different from throwing the fish back to the water or burning them? Both actions result in losses.

In developed countries, beginning with Britain trade unions amassed a special fund to pay its members whenever they were on strike. This is the reason strikes were on average for only a few days, lasting only so long the strike fund could support the strikers.

If the law in Malawi compels employers, including government, to keep on paying wages and salaries to employees who are on strike, is it a surprise that employees take hardline positions in negotiations and then go on strike that lasts weeks and months. When you are paid while you are loafing, what sort of disadvantage do you suffer?

My lifelong hero Benjamin Franklin put it this way: “Where there is no law, there will be hunger; where there is hunger there will be no law.”

Labour laws in Malawi are encouraging indiscipline and sloth on the part of the workers. The laws must be revised. Rights without duties are recipe for anarchy and social decadence.

Potential foreign direct investors study a country’s labour laws before they make decisions whether to proceed and invest in country X or go to country Y. Countries whose governments have made laws which make onerous demands on employers in favour of workers have found it difficult to attract foreign direct investors. Perhaps our labour laws have contributed to the deterrence of foreign direct investment in the country.

The Law Commission should look into all these laws which when implemented are a drain on public funds. Noone who chooses not to work should be paid. Going on strike is a voluntary decision not to work.

I am not surprised that the university lecturer apparently finds it unfair and illegal to withhold payment from those who go on strike.

Presidents of Malawi should read the autobiography of Dame Margaret Thatcher and see how she brought discipline in British society and revived the British economy by reducing strikes. Britain prospered as she had not done during the past 30 years. Leaders of the Labour party, like Tony Blair, copied some of Thatcher’s methods and Britain continued to do better.

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