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| Thursday, 20 May 2004 |
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HR Management vital for productivity - Sriyan de Silva by Steve A Morrell 'Good governance would mean sound economic development policies, good environmental policies, rule of law, and a climate free of corruption' said Sriyan de Silva at a lecture on 'Labour Law and Relations in Development: Sri Lanka', this week. He also launched his book 'Transformation of labour Laws and Relations' which was described as 'an authoritative study, and one which would be useful for future focus on productivity rather than the stultifying effects of archaic laws which have hampered rather than promoted productivity', said Franklyn Amarasinghe, past Secretary General of the Employers Federation of Ceylon in a short introduction and review of this book. Sriyan de Silva said that labour laws, and labour relations which exist in this country need review and change because of the changing climate of economic development. He quoted the success of the Japanese economy after the second World War. "Japan focused heavily on productivity and improvement through means that benefited companies, their employees and the public. Japan's somewhat unique labour relations system which concentrated on the workplace level, was geared to bring about consensus, dispute avoidance and productivity gains which would benefit everyone and not only employers". Comparing this system with the Sri Lanka labour laws, he said that inefficiency was rewarded and not the productive employee. Consequently there was negative impact on the economy and the net result was unnecessary waste of time and effort in unproductive tasks. Human resource management, and human resource development will be vital for future productivity rather than the dependence on labour laws, or labour relations said de Silva. At present sustainable development was not the main focus, because of heavy dependence on these outmoded laws. As a result of outmoded legislation employers were interpreting these laws to perpetuate their own agendas rather than fulfil the intentions of such legislation. Many trade union leaders agreed that the most controversial labour law was the Termination of Employment (Special Provisions) Act of 1971, which has not been revised and was now more a hindrance than one which would promote economic growth. De Silva said that industrial laws existing now did not act as incentives to invest in Sri Lanka because such laws were heavily weighted in favour of non productivity. Excessive number of statutory holidays, delays at all levels in litigation covering labour issues which impact adversely on employees and employers, enforcement only against employers in breaches of the labour laws, sometimes resulting in violations of collective agreements, were not areas which attract foreign investment, he said. He also said that contrary to the popular belief that generating employment in the public sector meant that various public institutions be the repository of people irrespective of their skills if at all, employment generation hinged on investment, capital, human resource and recognition of skills, and also matching skills to correlate to job functions. The Trade unionists said outsourcing of jobs was being done widely and done as a cost cutting exercise in contravention of existing labour practices. He said what was required was more investment in developing human resources, in recognition that people are a key competitive asset. |
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