Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam hosts UP researcher and lecturer

Posted on June 10, 2015

Dr Paul Smit, lecturer in the Department of Human Resource Management, is currently on a three-month staff exchange programme and research visit at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

The research Dr Smit is doing at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam focuses on transnational collective bargaining. In May 2015, he presented a paper at the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS), an institute for multidisciplinary research and teaching at the University of Amsterdam that combines law, economics, sociology, psychology and occupational health studies, to foster not only the results of their combined effect, but also to add value to the individual disciplines. The theme of his paper was ‘Social dialogue and collective bargaining in post-apartheid South Africa’.

In his paper, Dr Smit provided a brief overview of the nature of social dialogue and collective bargaining pre-1994, as well as a more in-depth description of institutionalised social dialogue and collective bargaining post-apartheid,especially as embodied in the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC).

During his stay in Europe, Dr Smit joined two of his MCom students to visit Prof Manfred Weiss at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, where they had workshops and discussions with Prof Weiss – the mentor of the research project of which Dr Smit is the leader, with the theme ‘Transnational Labour Relations in the SADC’. These workshops and discussions  were very enlightning and the students greatly benefitted from it – to such an extent that they are positive that they will succesfully complete their mini-dissertations on differenet aspects of transnational labour relations in SADC by the end of 2015.

From left to right: Prof Klara Boonstra (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands), Dr Paul Smit (UP), and Robert Hoekstra (PhD student of Prof Boonstra).

- Author Department of Human Resource Management

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