IR’s biggest problem

It’s the lack of fairness mostly due to politics. Fairness itself is a tough problem. It becomes even problematic once it is based on political discrimination.

Some might say that thus it should not be a problem as there is legislation against political discrimination. This assumes that reality changes according to legislation. If it were so, then gender, religious and political discrimination are a thing of the past. But anyone knows that such things still exist and it is very difficult, and at times practically impossible, to prove discrimination.

Recently, a friend of mine changes jobs. He left a job with career prospects to a new job which suited him better. The new employer, a large corporation, seemed quite interested as it was ready to pay the penalty he had to pay on leaving his initial job. He got the job but one month before his probationary period was over he received a letter informing him that his job will be terminated once the probationary period is over. Not a nice situation especially for a person who is married and has two young children!

What can he do? Practically nothing as the law gives the right to the employer (and the employee) to terminate the employment at will without assigning any reason. And the problem of fairness springs out facing us.

What’s the way out? Can we safeguard that at least the employee is given a fair chance to prove himself during the probationary period? What can unions do about it?

Changing legislation would be difficult as most probably any change would mean that the probationary period, as we know it today, will be finished. Employers would surely argue that it is fair for them to have such a period as it enables them to shove the unsuitable easily, without much hassle.

But unions can make the situation much fairer. Unions are not there to decide who is suitable for employment but have the duty to see that all are given a fair chance. Through collective bargaining unions can safeguard this. One method that unions use is that the employee is given the notice that the employee would not be engaged a month before the termination of the probationary period. This is the clause that one finds in the collective agreement of the corporation where my friend was engaged.

But I feel that this is not enough. In fact if one looks at some collective agreements one would find a fairer way. The employee receives a report on his performance at least twice before the end of the probationary period. The employer should have the duty to pinpoint any shortcomings on the part of the employee and set standards of performance. Thus the employee will have a right to mend his ways. I’m sure that this would benefit both the employee and the employer.

However, all this would fail if the context is within the public sector as many a time the basis of such decision is political. In such instances the above would fail as the employer will always find something new about which he is not satisfied. As I had said, proving political discrimination is very difficult to prove even though it is very obvious to feel it. As far as I can remember I can recall only two instances where political discrimination was proved. In one of the cases it was very obvious as the employee involved was discharged on the basis of inefficiency in an area where it was obvious to all that he excelled above all other competitors.

The other instance the political angle was proved, by chance, years later after the employee was discharged. It was the result of our big mouthed Minister going on television and stating that such discharge was correct as the person involved was engaged in a sensitive position and thus his political activity was contrary to the interests of the government. This was the time when this person, then occupying another position, was pushing forward the idea that the engagement of top posts within the civil service should go to blue eyed boys.


This shows the sorry state we live. I’m saying this for two reasons. First, through such action we’re really showing that we do not believe in democracy where every citizen has the right of association and the right to his/her political belief. Second, and up to a certain extent more serious, is the fact that we are so short of professional people that we simply cannot go on and use only half of the human resources available because of politics.