The extent of the regulation of atypical employment relationships in Ethiopian law, with comparative reference to South African labour law

Abstract

Universally, workers’ protection is centred on the standard employment relationship (full-time,indeterminate employment) based on the distinction between ‘employee’ and ‘independent contractor’; nonetheless globalization coupled with advances in technology and other related processes such as casualization, externalization and informalization, has resulted in the proliferation of different forms of work that deviate from the conventional employment relationship. There is also an increase,worldwide, in the number of persons who perform work outside the employment sphere because they are labelled independent contractors though in fact they are on the same level of economic dependence and vulnerability with those who perform work as ‘employees’. It is to this category of workers that literature refers collectively as ‘atypical employees’ or ‘non-standard employees’. Despite the fact that there have been moves internationally and nationally to integrate these classes of worker, it remains clear that they constitute a labour force which is less well paid and less secure. Most of the atypical employees are included in the definition of ‘employee’ in both jurisdictions though home workers are explicitly excluded under the Ethiopian labour law.However, the collective bargaining system does not function to address the problems of atypical employees in both countries as it does for standard employees.