TRADE-SOUTH AFRICA: Controversy Over Relaxing Of Labour Laws

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Farah Khan

Jul 28 2000 (IPS) - Trade unions have responded angrily to the South African government’s announcement that it will relax labour laws in order to attract investment.

Double pay for Sunday work has been scrapped, it will be easier for employers to fire workers on probation and longer working days are in the pipeline as the state moved to satisfy a host of complaints that labour laws were preventing job creation.

“The amendments go a long way to increase the sensitivity of our legal framework to the imperative to create jobs,” said Labour Minister, Shepherd Mdladlana, when he unveiled the changes this week.

Mdladlana has been under political pressure from the Cabinet to create greater labour flexibility.

President Thabo Mbeki has also been told by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and members of his International Investment Council that South African labour laws are too expensive to manage, that wages are too high and conditions of employment too liberal.

This, they have argued, is a disincentive to both domestic and foreign investors.

After one year’s negotiations with labour, business and representatives of communities where unemployment is high, government unveiled its proposed changes.

The extensive changes alter three pieces of legislation: the Labour Relations Act; the Basic Conditions of Employment Act and the Insolvency Act.

In a nutshell, the changes which favour business include; abolishing double pay for Sunday work, allowing the Minister to increase the working week from 45 hours per week, allowing the Minister to alter core rights including restrictions on night work and child labour, limit the extension of bargaining agreements to non-parties and small businesses and expediting the progress of labour disputes through statutory bodies.

The changes which benefit labour include; greater protection for contract workers, more negotiation of planned retrenchments, more protection when workers are transferred through privatisation, mergers etc

Despite the balance which the government tried to achieve between the competing interests of trade unions and business, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said Thursday that, “The labour market review process has gone horribly wrong.”

Cosatu, which has 1.8-million members across industries, added that the changes “completely upset the delicate balance achieved through years of negotiations”.

Cosatu is in a political alliance with the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and the South Africa Communist Party (SACP). Its mass power has played a significant role in winning the past two elections for the ANC.

But yesterday the federation was so angry that it issued a veiled threat on its continuing support for the ANC government.

“Cosatu wishes to warn the Department of Labour that the hard won rights of mainly black workers will not willy-nilly be taken away. We shall resist this attack with every possible means within our power.”

It said that the amendments lacked integrity because it went against promises that the ANC had made to Cosatu; the federation would take its complaints to Mbeki. The amendments “threaten to plunge our country into a period of protracted conflict,” it concluded.

Cosatu is most upset at government’s decision to vary core employment conditions like working hours.

“They contradict government’s commitment to reduce hours of work over time to a 40-hour working week.” The working week is currently 45 hours, but can now be made longer.

The federation also wanted more protection for casual and temporary workers – a type of work growing more and more common in the South African labour market.

Cosatu also wanted government to make retrenchments an issue of formal workplace negotiation – a request the Labour Department has not acceded to.

Government said that neither labour nor business would be 100 percent satisfied with the amendments. Business cautiously welcomed the changes, but said they could have gone further.

A representative of the SA Chamber of Business (Sacob) said that it would like to see the creation of zones where no labour laws apply, a position similar to that in South East Asian countries.

The opposition Democratic Party said that it was disappointed that government had not limited the right to strike.

The amendments have been published for public comment. In September, the social partners (government, business and labour) will begin to negotiate the changes at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC) before they are presented to parliament for ratification.

The Labour Minister said that he hoped to pass the amendments by the end of the year – but with a protracted fight in the offing, nobody is holding their breath.