DETERMINING THE SUCCESS OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF INDUSTRIAL AND LABOUR RELATIONS LAW ON ECONOMIC GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT IN KENYA

Abstract

The adoption of national labour relations laws and industrial laws are an important means of guaranteeing decent work and promoting the rule of law. The constitution of Kenya 2010, Article 36, is committed to extending its advisory services to employees’ bodies and to assist tripartite constituents in assessing and, where necessary, framing or revising their labour laws. The performance of the workforce in Kenya’s Labour force is still poor and this could be due to poor implementation of industrial and labour relations law. Several employees in Kenya are unable to improve their employment interest because of being unorganised and failure to use collective bargaining process. This is due to employer’s reluctance to develop a bargaining relationship with the workers, or because the employees are not organised. This has led to poor performance in the ministry of labour which in the end has resulted into loss of the credibility of the officials of the labour unions. The general objective of the study was; to assess the effectiveness of the implementation of industrial and labour relations law on Kenyan’s economic growth and development. It was guided by five research objectives namely: to examine the mechanism of establishing industrial democracy through collective bargaining process, to establish the influence of trade unions participation on employee’s productivity in the work place, examine how industrial relations and labour laws contribute to the economic growth and development in Kenya, analyse factors impending the Kenya labour laws and the various ways of reducing industrial disputes, promote and sustain peaceful relations in the workplace between the employer and employees and to examine how the labour relations act help in ensuring inclusivity to help in addressing the unfair treatment and discrimination that people with special abilities face in employment duties. The study employed use of descriptive research design. A sample of 100 number respondents was selected out of the population of 320 employees of different industries within the country, labour unions and various ombudsmen from the government within the county using stratified sampling technique. This represented a 30% sample of the whole population. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents. The data was analysed using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS). It will be interpreted in frequencies, percentages and correlations. The findings were presented using tables, bar charts and pie charts. The findings indicated that, there is poor grievance handling procedure, poor collective bargaining process as well as poor dispute handling procedures which affected implementation of labour relations laws in Kenya. The study recommended that management come up with other means of communication and employee participation such as team talk and use of suggestion box. The study also recommended the government to fasten the dispute handling procedure. More women to be elected as both management and union representatives to enhance gender balance