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Johannesburg - The parliamentary portfolio committee on labour voted in principle on Tuesday to restrict the employment of labour brokers by employees to three months, the ANC said.
"[After three months] they become full-time employees with equal pay and equal benefits," said ANC MP Buti Manamela, who is also the committee's whip.
"We think if someone is in temporary employment beyond three months it becomes clear that there is a need for that person on a full-time basis by the client."
Manamela said this would not preclude employers from entering into a fixed-term contract with workers.
He said the actual vote on the matter would take place next week. If the three-month regulation was agreed, Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant would specify to which industries it applied.
"We are targeting and protecting the most vulnerable of people... mainly farmworkers, mineworkers, and domestic workers. Those people are the people we are trying to protect, not just their jobs, but the quality of their jobs."
The Freedom Front Plus said the ANC's restriction on labour brokers was threatening job-creation in South Africa.
It could damage the flexibility of the labour market and keep people out of the workplace who would otherwise have had jobs, FFPlus parliamentary spokesperson Anton Alberts said in a statement.
"Employers will, therefore, rather not employ anybody than to allow temporary workers becoming permanent workers."
The FFPlus objected to the three-month period and recommended the retention of the six-month period, as had been proposed by the department of labour itself, he said.
Manamela said opposition parties had not presented proof that regulating labour brokers would result in job losses.
"We were under the impression that all political parties in parliament agree that there is [a] need to regulate the practice of labour brokers," he said.
"We can't have people being temporary employees for five years."
