HR professionals call for more judges at Industrial Court
The Human Resource Managers' Association of Uganda (HRMAU) has called upon government to increase the number of industrial court judges from five to a sizable number to reduce labour case backlog.
This was during the 2024 labour and employment law conference in Kampala.
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Established in 2014 to handle labour disputes, the industrial court of Uganda has several cases but remain challenged with a case backlog of 1200, most of which accuse employers of breaching the terms of engagement with their contracted employees.
" Currently, cases of employers taking their employees into the courts of laws are increasing yet these cases are not dealt with because we have only five industrial court judges. What we need is government to increase the number of of industrial court judges to give justice to workers in this evolving landscape of labour law," Ronald Bbosa, the president,HRMAU, said.
Bbosa says the national employment policy has to be implemented effectively to cater for workers' right and offer them justice when their contracts are breached by their superiors.
"Stakeholders need to bridge the knowledge gap of human resources officers and employees, understand why they make the decisions they make, give them advisory service to create an enabling business environment and improve places of work," Bbosa added.
To decrease litigation and dissatisfactory departure from work, experts urge human resource officers to initiate functioning dispute resolution and mediation mechanisms at work.
The labour and employment law conference aims at among others giving advisory service to human resource professionals to bridge their knowledge gap, improve their competence and improve places of work.
