State: 'Brokers sabotage law'

Cape Town - Labour broking undermines the Constitution and "has to be dealt with", parliament heard on Tuesday.

"Labour brokers tend to reduce the minimum wage and collective bargaining, they tend to undermine health and safety provisions in companies they work in," labour department senior executive manager Thembinkosi Mkalipi told the portfolio committee on economic development.

"We want to look at Section 23 of the constitution which indicates that every person shall have the right to fair labour practice.

"We believe that the practices of labour broking undermine that provision in the constitution, therefore we don't have a choice, we have to deal with this issue."

The African National Congress and its trade union allies have called for a ban on labour broking in a bid to end exploitation of casual labour.

Mkalipi said brokers tend to "undermine the right to freedom of association" and the department wanted to shift the responsibility of labour away from a third party to the employer.

"We want to prohibit the abusive practices of labour brokers," he said.

The department needs to make sure the law deals with "equal work for equal value", he said.

"In the labour broking business, you got people who do the same job in the same company, but are getting paid in terms of benefits," he said.

The department also has to look at subcontracting and outsourcing and see how it impacts labour broking.

ANC MP Xitlhangoma Mabaso said the government had a duty to protect workers from exploitation.

"We should say that the bottom line is that workers should be protected from exploitation.

"If we don't protect workers from exploitation, we will end up with very poor working people."

Labour brokers, he said, increased the gap between rich and poor.

"We also have the problem of the very richest and the very poorest. Anything we do, we should say does it increase that gap or does it reduce that gap?

"Labour brokers, the way they stand, increase that gap.

"We should be very vehement in terms of supporting the labour movement when it goes against labour brokers."

- Sapa