Malawi
The ITUC affiliate in Malawi is the Malawi Congress of Trade Unions (MCTU).
Legal
Freedom of association / Right to organise
Anti-Union discrimination
The law prohibits anti-union discrimination.
Categories of workers prohibited or limited from forming or joining a union, or from holding a union office
- Armed forces
- Others categories
- Prison officers
- Police
Right to collective bargaining
Barriers to the recognition of collective bargaining agents
- Previous authorisation or approval by authorities required to bargain collectively
- Registration is a prerequisite for bargaining status (section 11, Labour Relations Act, 1996), but it is a formality and the process is clear and not onerous.
- Excessive requirements in respect to trade unions’ representativity or minimum number of members required to bargaining collectively
- A union must have 20 per cent membership among the workplace/s or categories of employees it aims to represent in bargaining (section 25, Labour Relations Act, 1996).
- Undue requirements regarding trade unions’ structure, composition and affiliation
- There is a fairly extensive list of requirements that must be included in a union's rules as a prerequisite to registration (section 13, Labour Relations Act, 1996), but while the list is long, the requirements seem largely good practice and reasonable.
Limitations or ban on collective bargaining in certain sectors
- Armed forces
- Police
- Other categories
- Prison officers (section 3, Labour Relations Act, 1996).
Right to strike
Barriers to lawful strike actions
- Excessively long prior notice / cooling-off period
- There is a seven-day notice period, which, combined with the 21-day conciliation process, may be viewed as excessively long as a minimum period (sections 43-44, Labour Relations Act, 1996).
- Compulsory recourse to arbitration
arbitration
A means of resolving disputes outside the courts through the involvement of a neutral third party, which can either be a single arbitrator or an arbitration board. In non-binding arbitration, the disputing parties are free to reject the third party’s recommendation, whilst in binding arbitration they are bound by its decision. Compulsory arbitration denotes the process where arbitration is not voluntarily entered into by the parties, but is prescribed by law or decided by the authorities.
See conciliation, mediation , or to long and complex conciliation conciliation An attempt by a neutral third party, a conciliator, to aid the settling of an industrial dispute by improving communications, offering advice and interpreting issues to bring the disputing parties to a point where they can reconcile their differences. The conciliator does not take as active a role as a mediator or an arbitrator.
See arbitration, mediation and mediation mediation A process halfway between conciliation and arbitration, in mediation a neutral third party assists the disputing parties in reaching a settlement to an industrial dispute by suggesting possible, non-binding solutions.
See arbitration, conciliation procedures prior to strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.
See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike actions - As noted above, the conciliation and notice period may be viewed as excessively long.
Limitations or ban on strikes in certain sectors
- Discretionary determination or excessively long list of “essential services
essential services
Services the interruption of which would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population. Can include the hospital sector, electricity and water supply services, and air traffic control. Strikes can be restricted or even prohibited in essential services.
See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework
” in which the right to strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.
See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike is prohibited or severely restricted - There is a lack of clarity in the legislation around which services are classed as essential (section 2, Labour Relations Act, 1996).
In practice
The Mimosa Court Hotel owned by the Minister of Agriculture, Peter Mwanza, dismissed 21 workers for having demanded a wage increase. Moreover, workers complained that the hotel does not pay overtime even though many workers work 11 hour shifts per day. The workers had made their demands known to management in writing on 25 May 2013 and threatened to use strike
strike
The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.
See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike
action, if their demands were not met.
Trade unions are not included in the committees set up by the government to comment on social and economic issues. Union membership is low and many workers, notably those in the lucrative tobacco industry, are illiterate and are not aware that they have rights. The MCTI was included however in the UN-facilitated dialogue set up after the July protests.
Workers in the informal economy have organised themselves into a union, the Malawi Union for the Informal Sector (MUFIS), and have been affiliated to the Malawi Congress of Trade Unions (MCTU). It took over two years to register MUFIS with the Ministry of Labour as they noted that the union had no negotiating partner. The MCTU has, in recent years, reported on a number of cases where workers have been badly mistreated and where employers have appeared unaware that workers have employment rights by law.
Barely 12% of workers are in formal employment. For the small minority in formal jobs, the resistance of some employers and the government towards respecting their rights, limits freedom of association
freedom of association
The right to form and join the trade union of one’s choosing as well as the right of unions to operate freely and carry out their activities without undue interference.
See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework
and collective bargaining
collective bargaining
The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.
See collective bargaining agreement
. Speaking to the press in June 2009 Ronald Mbewe, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU), said most employers were reluctant to work with trade unions. His views were echoed by Mary Dzinyemba, general secretary for Commercial Industrial and Allied Workers Union (CIAWU), who said employers preferred to have workers who were ignorant of their rights. Many companies in the export processing zones (EPZ
export processing zone
A special industrial area in a country where imported materials are processed before being re-exported. Designed to attract mostly foreign investors by offering incentives such as exemptions from certain trade barriers, taxes, business regulations, and/or labour laws.
) also resist union activity, while the unions complain that they have little access to workers in the zones.
Legal ambiguities in the application of the right to strike
strike
The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.
See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike
are making it very hard to exercise this right. For instance, the law does not specify exactly which services are essential, enabling the authorities to declare strikes illegal. The length of the procedure is also problematic.