John Brand
John Brand is a lawyer, retired consultant and ADR specialist at Bowmans in South Africa, mediator, trainer, and retired director and shareholder of Conflict Dynamics. He serves on the ADR Advisory Committee of the South African Law Reform Commission. John is an IMI Certified Mediator and a member of IMI’s Independent Standards Commission and a CEDR-accredited mediator. He has specialised in dispute resolution and the training of negotiators, mediators, and arbitrators, has written extensively in journals and other publications, and co-authored “Commercial Mediation – a User’s Guide” and “Labour Dispute Resolution” both published by Juta. Over the past 30 years, he has arbitrated and mediated many large commercial and employment disputes and he regularly facilitated negotiation, strategic planning, and transformation processes. He was a member of the team of international experts appointed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to design mediation training for developing countries and he regularly trained mediators from countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and South America. The ILO also commissioned John to design training material and to train parties and trainers from countries across the world in mutual gain negotiation. This training material has been translated into French, Portuguese, and Arabic and is used extensively throughout the world.
When employers are approached by unions in the workplace, they have two basic options – they can resist, or they can co-operate. In the South African context, the political environment and the law make it practically very difficult to resist unions without seriously damaging consequences. Therefore, most employers choose to co-operate with unions in the workplace. However, doing so does involve some difficult challenges that, if they are handled well, can result in co-operation with a union being beneficial to an employer.
It is true that co-operation does involve some curtailment of management’s ability to act unilaterally and it is testing to work out what management can do unilaterally; with information sharing; with consultation; with negotiation; or only by joint agreement. In order to deal with this challenge, management needs to clearly understand what its legal rights and obligations are and to know what level of co-operation will reap the greatest benefit for it.
Management also needs to know how best to communicate and engage with a union in information sharing, consultation, and dispute meetings as well as how to negotiate effectively and handle disciplinary processes with union involvement.
If it addresses these challenges effectively there are important benefits to be gained. Co-operation helps management identify the causes of conflict at an early stage and to nip conflict in the bud. It also helps management to address conflict aggravators and to introduce conflict moderators that prevent the unnecessary manifestation of conflict. This all contributes to a more peaceful, productive and profitable enterprise.
If you would like to hear more about the training that Conflict Dynamics offers to assist management to address the challenges of managing in a unionised environment and in handling workplace conflict and negotiation effectively then call Craig on +2711 669 9678 for more information.