The 3rd reason as to why your employee is likely to challenge termination of his employment

In the last article, we discussed one of the major reasons that contribute to the decision of an employee to challenge the termination of employment before the relevant authority. The legal reason is the 2^nd reason apart from the economic reason we have discussed earlier.

The legal reason is often categorised into two aspects thus substantive (valid and fair reason) and procedural aspects. As the employer, you must have a valid reason and follow proper procedures in order to terminate the employment of an employee before a specific time as per the contract.

Today, we are going to look at the 3^rd reason why your employee is likely to challenge the termination of his employment.

Labour Dispute System

The Labour Dispute System has been created by the statute of the Labour Institutions Act and its Regulations. These institutions created by law made access to labour justice to be simple and without cost than the other areas of the legal dispute system.

The labour laws application on how to refer a labour dispute is through filing the CMA Form No.1 which is very easy for an employee to fill and refer to CMA. There is no complication on how to file the dispute or attachment of some documents as other references in the dispute system.

On the other hand, the labour dispute system as far as a reference of dispute is concerned is FREE. There is no cost attached if a party refer a labour dispute to CMA or Labour Office or Labour Court. This access to justice in labour disputes makes the employee to refer the dispute without thinking of the consequence in case the dispute is found not to be legally maintainable. In another dispute system if a complainant fails to maintain his action is condemned to cost while in labour disputes there are no costs involved in the reference or administration of the dispute.

Though the party of the employee to refer the labour dispute does not involve costs, the party of the employer definitely will incur costs such as hiring a legal consultant, time consumption etc.

Now the question before us employers is that

• Are you prepared to incur some costs in a case labour dispute is filed against your organization?
• Are you prepared to use your productive time in resolving disputes that would have been prevented?

In case you don’t want to incur costs and spend your time trying to resolve unnecessary disputes then read the facts below;

Important Facts about Labour Disputes in Tanzania

• Do you know that in every 10 incidents of termination of employment, 8 out of 10 employees will file a labour dispute challenging termination?
• Do you know that in 6 out of 8 referred disputes employers are penalised to pay compensation of at least 12 months’ salary for unfair termination?

If you own a business and you have employed some employees it is a fact that one day you will terminate their employment. therefore, according to the facts above you are at risk that your actions will be challenged at CMA or Labour Office and might be penalised for unfair termination.

According to the research done on Labour Disputes in Tanzania which involved more than 1,000 labour disputes over the past 10 years it was revealed that Employees are successful in challenging termination at a rate of more than 80%, i.e in every 100 labour disputes, 80 disputes ended in favour of employees and employers were penalised to pay compensation of not less than 12 Months salaries.