The Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) has threatened to take mass action against labour broking at the end of February if there is no ban on the industry.
Draft amendments to the Labour Relations Act (LRA), Basic Conditions of Employment Act and Employment Equity Act, and a new piece of proposed legislation - the Public Employment Services Bill - were published in the Government Gazette in December last year.
The amendments propose a repeal of section 198 of the LRA, which regulates labour brokers, effectively prohibiting labour broking and leading to job losses, according to Democratic Alliance (DA) labour shadow minister Ian Ollis.
However, the Department of Labour (DOL) insists the amendments do not constitute a ban on labour broking.
The Bills are currently at a delicate stage at Nedlac, an institution for social dialogue composed of business, government, labour and community, says the department.
Labour minister Nelisiwe Mildred Oliphant is pushing Nedlac for a decision. She requested the social partners to speed up the process of amending labour legislation since there was an expectation that this process would be finished by the end of this year.
Not good enough
“While the government's legislative proposals did not constitute a ban on labour broking, they were also not the weak form of regulation originally called for by business.
“Nevertheless, [Cosatu] decided to maintain the call for a ban on labour brokers,” says the federation.
It adds that its planned mass action for 5 October this year had to be postponed after a meeting of the Nedlac Section 77 Standing Committee took a majority decision that the notice submitted by Cosatu was premature as matters were still being considered.
“Cosatu remains utterly opposed to the practice of labour brokering, a form of human trafficking, which has condemned thousands of workers to insecure jobs with poverty pay, no benefits and no job security, and will continue with the mass action at the end of February.
“We shall not rest until labour brokering has been banned.”
The federation says if this demand is not realised it must be backed by a series of general strikes.
“We have been asked to develop rolling mass action in all provinces at the beginning of 2012 to back this demand.”
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