Interest-based bargaining, or interest-based negotiations, has been identified as a more contemporary and result-oriented mode of resolving labour-related disputes.
A labour consultant and human resource practitioner, Mr. Senyo Adjabeng, made the disclosure in an interview with B&FT at his office in Tema.
Dilating further, Mr. Adjabeng described the old method of bargaining or negotiating terms and conditions of service as antagonistic, adversarial and involving a lot of power-plays which bring along a lot of acrimony.
He went on to state that if the current method of negotiating labour disputes — especially for public sector workers — is maintained, there will definitely be problems in the process as is being witnessed on the labour front.
Mr. Adjabeng stated that interest-based negotiation is clearly spelt out in the Labour Act, (Act 651, 2003), specifically in section 97, and that with the methodology, the interests of the parties are treated as though they are problems for both parties as against the “me against you” or “me against the others” attitude.
The approach, he observed, is more of “us against the problem” rather than “you against me”. He consequently advised public sector labour stakeholders to employ the interest-based bargaining method in resolving labour disputes to get optimal results.
“This is because a lot of information will be thrown across the table and treated as joint problems by the parties in good faith, and the parties will together address the issue at stake as though they are problems for both, as against the “me against you” approach.”
He said either due to a lack of appreciation of the processes in dispute resolution, or resorting to the old method of table-top bargaining, accounts for a lot of the problems in dispute-resolution of labour-related upheavals.
He noted that with the traditional approach, parties hold information to their chest before coming to the bargaining table and trying to negotiate. He urged parties to learn to trust each other and share information that is relevant to the negotiations.
He stated that the joint standing negotiating committee must of necessity go through some form of joint training to prepare their minds and to adopt a specific approach, so that in negotiating there are no surprises.
Mr. Adjabeng was responding to questions surrounding the recent increase in public sector labour disputes which have rocked the economy in recent times. He attributed the upheavals to the fuel price hikes that occurred between December 2011 and January 2012, which he predicted in his column.
He told B&FT that he made the prediction with the implementation of the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS) of public sector workers in mind, since the ripple effect of the price hike would invariably affect the cost of living and workers would want to agitate for commensurate increases in their wages.
He however described the SSSS as one of the best things to have happened in the employment sector in recent times. He noted that since 1983 a lot of revolution occurred in the labour front, such as SAP and other interventions, which failed to touch on labour issues. It was only in the 1990s that serious work toward improving the labour situation was instituted, and the bill was passed in 2003.
He said the public sector reform is also another significant revolution in the labour front that looks at the public sector structure in terms of employment. He noted that this is a consequence of the failure of the Ghana Universal Salary Structure (GUSS), which has failed due to power-plays which people used to get out of that structure and create their own salary structure — like the health sector. There was therefore need for a universal consolidated structure to address public sector workers, which the SSSS has come to fulfil in spite of some implementation problems.
the implementation problems arise because the over 50 unions in the public sector want to deal with the Fair Wages and Salary Commission individually rather than as a bloc — which is causing instability, especially in an election year.
He said if they had all gone under the Trades Union Congress and allowed the joint public sector salary negotiating committee to work, the problem of migration could be carried out in a more appropriate manner.
By Konrad Kodjo Djaisi
