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Labour broker spat exposes Nedlac

Johannesburg - Nedlac has been reduced to the status of a toy telephone, according to Michael Bagraim, chairperson of Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry's human resources committee.

He was commenting on the rejection of labour brokers and strike ballots by the parliamentary portfolio committee on labour.

This was despite a prior agreement by all parties after 18 months of negotiations at Nedlac.

Bagraim said the compromise to allow labour brokers to place workers with a company for six months before they had to be placed on the permanent staff had been proposed by Cosatu and agreed at Nedlac.

“Now, suddenly, a parliamentary committee, without consulting the other parties at Nedlac, decides to throw out the six months clause and ban labour brokers altogether," said Bagraim.

"Then it changes its mind and decides to replace the six months clause with a three months clause."

Fred Jacobs, president of the chamber said it was clear that the parliamentary committee had little respect for Nedlac.

“If there was a problem with the agreement it should have gone back to Nedlac for further negotiation. That is the right way to do things.”

Bagraim said that to date Cosatu had never given a valid reason to ban labour brokers.

“The real reason is that Cosatu membership is declining and it is difficult to sign up the highly mobile workforce deployed by labour brokers," said Bagraim.

Bagraim said the sudden and unexplained rejection of strike ballots was even more strange.

“Strike ballots are democratic measures and were proposed by the government. Both business and labour agreed to them. Now strike ballots have been thrown out because Cosatu has changed its mind, because Cosatu officials know that if they put strike proposals to the vote they will lose.”

Only one in four workers in South Africa now belonged to a union and the percentage was even lower in the private sector, according to Bagraim.

The restriction to three months will  in effect mean a ban of the use of labour brokers, according to the SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Sacci).

This is because the probationary period for new employees is often three months or longer.

The National Employers Association of SA (Neasa) on Wednesday also added its voice to organisations opposing the total ban of labour brokers.

"Neasa views this move as detrimental to all of government's efforts to accelerate job creation and reduce unemployment," said Neasa CEO, Gerhard Papenfus.

Other organisations supporting Neasa were the Free Market Foundation and Business Unity SA.

Papenfus said recent surveys had shown that labour-broking was the fastest-growing sector of the South African labour market.

"Labour-brokers constitute a R44bn industry, employing around 19 500 internal staff and just over one million agency workers or temps in the country," he said.

"By banning this industry, the ANC-led government would in actual fact be backtracking on its goals of creating jobs and reducing unemployment."

Papenfus said the answer was not in the banning of labour brokers, but in ensuring legislation was in place to prevent the exploitation of workers.

If the three-month regulation was agreed to, labour minister Mildred Oliphant would specify to which industries it applied.

Sacci said it is "disturbed by the tenor" of deliberations on the bill.

Proposed amendments were discussed at Nedlac and agreement was reached on a time-span for temporary employment of six months.

"Sacci is of the view that the result [of a three month restriction] will be a loss of jobs rather than job creation, a situation which the country can ill afford."

Sacci is also concerned about the proposal making it unnecessary for unions to ballot members before embarking on a strike.

"This is testing the boundaries of legality and could result in more disruptive strike action than is currently being experienced," the organisation said.

"In the current climate the country needs as many safeguards as possible to ensure stability in labour relations. The holding [of] a strike ballot constitutes one such safeguard."

- Fin24



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