Mainstreaming Labour Relations with Social Protections at the Workplace: Challenges and Prospects for Social Partners

Abstract

It is argued in this paper that as fundamental components in the pursuit of decent work in the workplace, effective labour relations and social protections have become critical area of concern within the context of contemporary workplace, even with the attendant ‘precarity’, as influenced by neo-liberal framing. Social protection has a fundamental connection with employment protection thereby assuring social cohesion at the workplace. However, as workers are exposed to the vagaries of labour market reforms, influenced by the competitive labour market environment; concerns remain on how to cohere workplace labour relations practices with social protections in a manner that assure income security, workplace safety, and other social measures that protect work-life balance for workers. This has also become indispensable in ensuring equities and opportunities for both genders at the workplace. Thus, within the context of workplace regimes, the challenges remain on how to promote labour relations principles and practices in a manner that address the issues of workplace tensions and interest of stakeholders. Indeed, in the context of emerging neo-liberal dictates, the process of mainstreaming the two prospects; both at organisational and national employment relations levels raise simultaneous challenges to social partners; on how to integrate the two seemingly contrasts, against the backdrop of the precariousness in employment. This paper therefore analyses these challenges and prospects. The paper contends that it is imperative to cohere labour relations practices with social protections at the workplace. Efforts at integrating workplace labour relations practices with social protections must be seen as integral to decent employment, and therefore be given its deserved attention by the social partners; in promoting the ethos of decent work in the workplace