Contractors who work with the State IT Agency (SITA) are not its employees and so it does not have contractual obligations to them, says the agency.
In an interview with ITWeb yesterday, SITA CEO Blake Mosley-Lefatola said the relationship between SITA and contractors is a complex one.
This comes after ITWeb in July reported that contractors doing work for SITA threatened to strike due to a lack of increases and non-existent communication with SITA authorities, among other issues.
Not ours
Mosley-Lefatola explained that SITA has contracts with labour broking houses, which in turn employ the contractors. The contractors have their own contractual relationship with the labour broking house.
“So they are not employees. For all intents and purposes they may not be seen as employees of SITA. They are employees for those labour broking houses. Everything that we do should be done in the confines of the contractual relationships.”
It is the responsibility of the labour broking owners to interact with their employees around their conditions of employment, said the CEO.
He added that SITA will also interact with the contractors, but cannot do it on behalf of the labour brokers and this is what complicates matters.
“But of course, individuals being individuals, are not really worried about those [contractual] arrangements if there are issues that are bothering them and so we understand why they sometimes act the way they do.”
“It's a bit messy in terms of the contractual relationships between the three parties. But we need to respect it and find a way in which we can communicate within those confines. We are committed to doing that, because we understand that workers are workers and they need to be treated appropriately.”
Last year, Cabinet adopted a turnaround framework for the ailing SITA. One of the outcomes of the strategy is for the agency to become an employer of choice, says public service and administration minister Richard Baloyi.
Speaking terms
SITA's working relationship with the South African Police Services (SAPS) was previously described as “fractious” by acting chief of business operations at SITA Andile Pama.
This is because of SAPS's dissatisfaction with SITA's service delivery.
SITA has an ongoing relationship with the SAPS and had a two-day workshop with police in June, where project issues confronting the contractual relationship were looked at, according to Mosley-Lefatola.
“We are committed to addressing the challenges that we've got. It is a working relationship, but it's not as if we are not on speaking terms.”
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