Employers perturbed by labour ban

"Neasa views this move as detrimental to all of government's efforts to accelerate job creation and reduce unemployment‚" said Neasa's chief executive‚ 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 sector‚ employing around 19‚500 internal staff and just over a million agency workers or temps in the country‚" he said.

"By banning this system‚ the ANC-led government would be backtracking on its goals of creating jobs and reducing unemployment," Papenfus said. He said the answer did not lie in banning labour brokers but ensuring legislation was in place to prevent the exploitation of workers.

Parliamentary deliberations

The parliamentary labour portfolio committee was meeting this week to continue deliberations on the Labour Relations Amendment Bill.

The African National Congress said the committee had voted in principle on Tuesday (11 June) to restrict labour brokers' employment of workers to three months.

African National Congress MP and committee member Buti Manamela said the actual vote on the bill would take place next week.

If the three-month regulation was agreed to‚ Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant would specify the industries which it applies to.

The SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Sacci) said it was "disturbed by the tenor" of deliberations on the bill.

Proposed amendments were discussed in the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) and agreement was reached on a maximum of six months for temporary employment.

Probationary period

"While business commended government for agreeing that broking would not be banned‚ the reduction of the period from six to three months will have the unintended consequence of doing so‚" Sacci said in a statement.

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

"Sacci is of the view that the result will be a loss of jobs rather than job creation‚ a situation which the country can ill afford." The organisation said it was also concerned at the proposal that makes 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‚" it 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," Sacci added.

Source: Sapa via I-Net Bridge