Labour Relations Act
	Council for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration
	National Productivity Institute
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	Department of Labour
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THIS week, Rael Solomon reports on the benefits of legal insurance.

CCMA Commissioner Larry Shear discusses the Labour Court and Labour Appealss Court.

LEGALWISE TAKES THE PAIN OUT OF LITIGATION

LegalWise is to law what medical aids are to medicine. For R35,00 per month a member of LegalWise can insure himself and his family for up to R35 000,00 in legal fees for each case covered by the Insurance. LegalWise was started in 1984 by Zak Crafford and has now grown to a stage where it receives over 6000 calls per day.

Jan Luwes, financial director of LegalWise told Labour Guides that their largest and fastest growing department was labour law. Whilst labour problems have always provided their biggest work load the advent of the new Labour Relations Act and the C.C.M.A. have seen a surge in employee orientated demand for legal advice. Unfair dismissals make up over 90% of their labour work load. LegalWise only provides its service to individuals although they are now investigating the possibility of extending their insurance to cover small businesses. Luwes says that in the same way as fringe benefits offered by employers often include medical aid, many companies are looking at the possibility of offering a legal cost assistance package. An employee saddled with massive legal expenses is in no position to offer a high level of productivity. They offer immediate access for new problems if they can be solved in-house. For outside attorney's expenses a waiting period of three months is required.

Last month two mini-buses with eighteen employees from a building contract site parked outside one of LegalWises 9 branches. The contract employees complained that they had been thrown off the site following an altercation with the contract manager. All eighteen employees immediately signed up for membership and the construction company head office was contacted. A conciliation meeting was arranged in one of their conference rooms and three hours later all employees were back on site.

LegalWise has 300 000 members, nine branches in all the main centres and is looking at having satellites in the smaller towns. With over 70 legal advisers they offer an in-house service. If this is not adequate to solve a particular problem, members may employ a lawyer of their own choice, provided he is prepared to work according to LegalWise tariffs. The member may choose to pay the difference, as is the case with doctors who have opted out of medical schemes.

LegalWise's paralegal and legal advisory service is available for all problems. However with outside attorneys not all legal problems are covered - specifically marital problems, business activities or where an admission of guilt is payable.

There are a number of competitors in the field offering in-house services to their members. The A.A. have now come out with a legal aid for their members.

The Labour Court is like the Supreme Court, but is only concerned with labour, or employment disputes. The Labour Court will only hear a case if the case was first referred to the Commission for mediation, and if the conciliation process failed to resolve the dispute. If the conciliation or mediation process is properly handled, therefore, the intention is that less and less cases will actually be referred to the Labour Court. Only time will tell if this is a correct prediction.

The Act specifies which cases are to be referred to the Commission and which disputes must be referred to the Labour Court.

Disputes that should be referred to the Labour Court include -

• Automatically unfair dismissals.
• Illegal strike dismissals. Remember, persons who embark on legal or protected strikes may not be dismissed, and
• Operational requirement or retrenchment dismissals.

In addition to the Labour Court, the new Act also establishes a Labour Appeals Court. The Labour Appeals Court may hear Appealss from the Labour Court and is the final Court of Appeals in relation to all labour disputes. There is no further Appeals from the Labour Appeals Court to another Court.

SELF REGULATION
It must again be remembered that the new Labour Relations Act encourages what has been called self-regulation, i.e. a procedure whereby employer, industries and trade unions establish their own methods and procedures for resolving disputes. It is expected that industries and organisations which fall within the jurisdiction or authority of a particular bargaining council will refer their disputes to their own dispute resolving structures. That is why all constitutions of bargaining councils must have a procedure for the resolution of disputes. It is also expected that collective agreements as well as workplace forum constitutions and agreements will contain provisions dealing with dispute resolution.

This makes for much quicker and cheaper determinations. Also, there is the further advantage that disputes will be reconciled and/or arbitrated by persons closer to and with a greater knowledge of the problems of a particular sector. However, like in all other changes brought about by the new Labour Relations Act, the process and procedure of self-regulation requires a whole new outlook and a completely fresh approach. With the right attitude and the right persons appointed to perform the conciliation (mediation) and arbitration functions, the new system can and will work.