Publications
Partners
Johannesburg - The debate on the labour relations amendment bill in Parliament does not undermine discussions already held at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac), the organisation said on Thursday.
Media coverage suggested that parties had reached consensus on certain issues at Nedlac and Parliament was now undoing that consensus, Nedlac executive director Alistair Smith said.
"It is... factually incorrect to view the current deliberations in Parliament as undermining the Nedlac process. This does not however mean that Parliament should simply ignore the views raised by the social partners," he said.
The amendments were likely to have lasting consequences and therefore needed to be weighed carefully.
"It is therefore unfortunate that much of the debates on labour broking have been marked by adversarialism and political point scoring rather than more open and evidence-based engagement," Smith said.
The burning issue in Parliament, where the legislation was due to be debated on Thursday afternoon, had been whether labour brokers should be banned or just regulated.
Smith said the Nedlac Act allowed for social partners to consider all labour legislation before it was tabled in Parliament.
"The purpose of this type of social dialogue is to allow organised business and labour an opportunity to influence the legislation based on a negotiated process of seeking consensus."
Nedlac protocol stipulated that parties would not reopen issues for debate at the parliamentary level if they had reached consensus on such issues at Nedlac.
Parliament, as the sovereign law-making body, had the ultimate say in making legislation, subject to the Constitution.
Smith said the deadlock around labour brokers was but one issue in a complex package of reforms debated at Nedlac.
Social partners considered amendments to the Labour Relations Act, Basic Conditions of Employment Act, Employment Equity Act, and a new bill on employment services, he said.
"While many areas of the proposed reforms were agreed to, consensus could not be achieved on certain amendments affecting atypical work, including the use of labour brokers."
Smith said much of the media attention had focused exclusively on labour brokers.
The controversy around labour broking was "symptomatic" of the vibrancy of the South African democracy and the need for leadership to find ways of resolving problems, he said.
