Wednesday Jan 19th
Source: Afrique en ligne
Society-Ethiopia - The management of the Lutheran Wold Federation Department for World Service (LWF-DWS) and its labour union are to have a mediation session supervised by the Federation of Hotel, Tourism and General Services Employees Association (HTGSEA) over their collective agreement, on Monday, January 17, 2010. The labour union claimed that the management had failed to include it in the promotion and demotion of employees as well as disciplinary measures, and had requested the federation to intervene.
Although the union had repeatedly written to the management to respect the collective agreement between them, in which the matter is included, the management had failed to do so, sources inside the NGO, who wished to remain anonymous, told Fortune.The agreement was signed 10 months ago after two legal battles in the labour relations board.
In response to one of the letters, the management admitted that it was unaware that it was supposed to notify the union in the matter. The letter, signed on January 1, 2011, by Lemma Degefa (PhD), the local representative of LWF-DWS, asked for the union to tolerate such mistakes and take into consideration the short time the agreement has existed.
However, once a company signs a collective agreement, the document is legally binding and obliges the company to implement it, according Regen Gebremedhine, a legal expert working in a private company.
"A company does not have any option but to respect the collective agreement," he told Fortune.
"The promotions were for managerial positions and we did not think we had to inform the union, Lemma told Fortune by phone.
However, sources close to the labour union refuted this.
"The promotions included filling secretarial and junior accounting positions," the sources told Fortune.
The labour union had written three letters, which were all signed by its executive committee, requesting the management to honour the collective agreement, since September last year.
The union will not accept the decisions made by the company while ignoring the collective agreement, one of the letters states.
Following that, Awot Kifle, president of the labour union, wrote a letter to the HTGSEA, asking it to intervene in the matter, on December 22, 2010.
Awot declined to comment on the matter before the mediation has taken place.
"The labour union called for the intervention, but we are yet to hold a meeting," said Gessese Abegaz, president of the federation.
He also declined to comment further before the mediation has taken place.
Eden Sahle
Addis Fortune/18/01/2011
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