Perceptions of personnel practitioners in Bloemfontein of the dispute resolution mechanisms of the labour relations Act 66 of 1995

English: The workplace in South Africa has been polarised along racial lines, mainly as a result of separatist policies of the past. The resultant social, political, and economic environments created a negative organisational culture generally. This led to a lack of participation and lack of confidence between members of the communities as well as the absence of group identity. The new government has therefore had to embark on a transformation process in which the economic development of the disadvantaged black majority has become a dominant theme of the politically reconstructed South Africa. This has created perceptions that the government favours labour to the detriment of business and that the balance of power has shifted in favour of labour. The Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 was passed in September 1995 and became effective on 11 November 1996. One of the objectives of this Act is to provide simple dispute resolution procedures. The centrepiece of the Act is the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA). The CCMA and the Labour Court are two dispute resolution institutions. The research aimed to determine the perceptions of personnel practitioners towards the dispute resolution mechanisms of the Act. The project assessed the perceptions of personnel practitioners in Bloemfontein regarding these dispute resolution mechanisms. The specific mechanisms under the Act are conciliation and arbitration as well as the Labour Court processes. The research also aimed to determine whether these- perceptions differed on the basis of biographical variables such as race, industry, level of management as well as size of the organisation, etc. A non-experimental exploratory, descriptive design was used. The sample population consisted of personnel practitioners in Bloemfontein with at least 2 years' experience as labour relations practitioners. The sampling strategy was convenience sampling. A questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents on aspects of conciliation, arbitration, the Labour Appeal Court. Descriptive statistics were used to record the perceptions of practitioners regarding the dispute resolution mechanisms. The findings of the study indicate that perceptions of the sample population are favourable and that there are differences, though not significant, according to industries, level of management and size of organisations, but not necessarily according to race. The study concludes with recommendations which generally focus on relationship building as a means of reducing and/or eliminating conflict in the workplace. In addition, the workplace needs to be transformed as a means of encouraging the relationship building process. Once this has been achieved, a performance evaluation programme for the CCMA should be put in place to identify any performance deficiencies and the appropriate training interventions should be selected to address the skills shortages of the appointed commissioners. In the event of these not addressing the identified problems, amendments to the Act may be considered and effected and, finally, the parties may contract out of the statutory dispute resolution institutions.