LEGAL ASPECT OF EMPLOYMENT II

TOPIC 1
EMPLOYMENT AND LABOUR LAW

After studying this chapter students should be able to understand the following:

i. Introduction to Employment and Labour Law

ii. Understanding the Concept of Employment
iii. Understanding Labour Law
iv. Nature of Labour Law
v. Understanding the aims and Objectives of Labour Law
vi. Philosophy of Labour Law
vii. Understand the direction to trace the sources of Sierra Leone’s employment/labour law;
viii. Categorize the various sources;
ix. Know the influence of the colonialism on the national life.
INTRODUCTION
I will use this topic, with emphasis on the Sierra Leonean situation, to provide you with the general
background information about the course by introducing you to the definition, philosophy and nature of
labour law in relation to employment, employment-related issues; including labour law or employment
law which have in recent years attracted so much attention from various segments of the society.

These include the government circle, the scholars, captains of industry, students of organizational studies
as a result of growing realization of the importance and relevance of the relationship between
employment and the law.

The labour movement has been instrumental in the enactment of laws protecting labour rights right from
the 19th and 20th centuries with the present period.

Labour rights and protection have remained integral to the social and economic order and development
since the industrial revolution when the nature of employment has been transformed (Read the Historical
Development of Labour Law attached).

My concern, therefore, will be the discussion of labour laws or statutes in their principles and codes as
they affect the employment of one part of another in the workplace and within the larger economy
taking into consideration the involvement of all the labour (workers), the employers and government.

By the time I will complete lecturing this topic, students should be able to:
(i) describe the word employment and state its importance to man;

(ii) define labour and explain its role in the world of work;

(iii) Articulate the philosophy of the labour law.

THE CONCEPT OF EMPLOYMENT

The word employment simply means work or doing work for a reward in form of wage or salary. It is
an act or state of being employed or being engaged in activity or activities to earn money i.e., the
situation in which people have work.
Employment is a means for providing human basic needs. Its nature can be full-time, part-time,
permanent or temporary.
PHILOSOPHY AND NATURE OF LABOUR LAW

This topic will be discussed under the under listed subheads:

WHAT IS LABOUR LAW?

Labour law, otherwise known as employment law, is the body of laws, administrative rulings, and
precedents which address the legal rights of, and restrictions on working people and their organizations.
Labour law mediates many aspects of the relationship between trade unions, employers and employees.
It is evolved to regulate the activities and conducts of the various actors or the main stakeholders in the
world of work so that the game is played according to the dictate of the rules and regulations.
Such main actors are the workers and their union, the employers and their associations, the government
and its agencies.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF LABOUR LAW

The essence of labour law is to ensure orderliness and stability in the world of work through harmonious
relationship among and between the actors within the work organization. This situation, if well
established and sustained, there will be good job performance that will engender continuous and
improved productivity level whereby interests of individual employee, the investors and the community
will be favoured as to each party and the overall well-being.

Labour law, just like other areas of law including the constitution and the entire judicial system of the
land (nation) is set out to show direction of conduct, control, protect interests, prevent oppression,
exploitation of a party by another party and many more.

PHILOSOPHY AND NATURE OF LABOUR LAW

On a general note, thinking about employment and its contextual issues especially the mode of
interaction at the workplace is growing by the day. The role of each of the parties in a particular
organization and the world of work in general, the diversity and conflict of interests, the likely fallouts
in various dimensions, the need for harmonization of these diverse interests, prevention of unwholesome
happenings and engendering of required peaceful industrial or work environment, healthy enough for
required productivities in form of employment relation remain paramount and tenable philosophy.
The importance of work as a primary human activity and a means of fulfilling man’s potentialities cannot
be overemphasized. The employment of individuals to work amount to the development of the human
potentialities of the worker as a social being, a wealth creator and a master of nature. Employment
(work) makes individual to be useful to himself and the society. Lack of work or unemployment makes
man incomplete and threatens man’s existence.

Thus, employment integrates people into the social structure and gives them an identity. The essential
nature of employment (work) and its social nature in terms of uneven interests, interdependence,
contribution to individual and community life, calls for evolvement and enforcement of necessary codes
of conduct or rules of the game as being or may be played by the actors or parties making up the
whole system to forestall any breach that may result from the inbuilt differences. Such codes, principles
and regulatory instruments constitute the labour (employment) law which components I shall discuss with
you students.

THE VARIOUS SOURCES OF LABOUR LAW CATEGORIZED

Even the recent borrowed American Presidential System of Government has not been able to set aside
totally the inherited British models of our national life and mode of corporate governance and
institutional arrangements especially the laws and the judicial system.

Hence, the sources of the contemporary Sierra Leonean labour law fall into the following broad
categories:

i. Received English Law:

• Common Law
• Tort
• Contract

ii. Local Legislations and Case Law:

• Labour Act –
• Trade Unions Act –
• Trade Dispute Act –
• National Security and Social Insurance Trust Act –
• National Housing Fund Act - Companies Act etc

iii. Customs and Practices accepted as binding in Law which the courts can enforce.
 iv. Other Sources:
• Workman’s Compensation Act –
• National Dockworkers’ Act
• Any Statute of General Application as entrenched in the codes of many parts of the
free world.

Self-Assessment Exercise:
• How will you define the phrase labour law?
• What is meant by the word employment?
• Mention how many categories of the sources of the Sierra Leonean Labour Law we have.
• Briefly describe the effects of colonialism on the Sierra Leone legal system’s structure.