Conciliation-Mediation of Labour Disputes for Sri Lanka

26 October - 27 November 2020 The recent changes in the global labour market and the impact of the consequences of the outbreak of COVID-19 have affected the traditional labour dispute resolution methods. The place of adversarial rights-based processes such as labour tribunals is not in dispute, but alongside, there is a growing recognition of the value of effective consensus-based dispute resolution methods including conciliation. Nowadays, this method plays an important role in the way in which employers, employees and their representative organisations, including trade unions, find agreed solutions to common problems in the workplace, enterprise and different levels. In this context, it is important to support labour dispute resolution mechanism in Sri Lanka, and consequently to reinforce the national setting of conciliation/mediation in the country. In this perspective, this course focuses on the functioning of the processes and the strong emphasis on the skills of conciliators from both a theoretical and practical perspective will improve the way in which conciliation is interpreted, understood, and applied. This in turn will contribute to the greater and more frequent use of these two alternative dispute resolution methods, with the objective of making dispute resolution more effective, less costly and more timely, while reducing the burden of courts and tribunals. OBJECTIVES The objectives of this course were to: •Strengthen Sri Lanka’s dispute resolution system;•Provide sound theoretical and practical knowledge of the key principles of theconciliation/mediation process;•Strengthen the understanding and analyse the role and functions of concilia-tors/mediators;•Provide techniques and guidance on how to improve the skills of concilia-tors/mediatorsand the techniques they can use during this process;•Foster knowledge sharing and exchange of best practices related to concilia-tion/mediation;•Promote the application of key ILO principles and values in this context. CONTENT The course was conducted online and included the following topics: •An Introduction to Conciliation/Mediation;•Approaches to Conflict Management;•Problem, Process and People Skills;•The Process of Conciliation;•Effective Skills of a Conciliator/mediator ACHIEVEMENT Participants achieved a better understanding of the process of conciliation/mediation of labour disputes and of the role and skills of conciliators/mediators.