As strike season hits South Africa, many different unions are protesting about different issues – but almost all of them have one demand in common: they want labour brokers banned.
In terms of this disputed system, businesses do not source staff themselves but ask brokers to supply people with certain skills.
As strike season hits South Africa, many different unions are protesting about different issues – but almost all of them have one demand in common: they want labour brokers banned.
In terms of this disputed system, businesses do not source staff themselves but ask brokers to supply people with certain skills.
The service provided by brokers differs widely: some offer fair conditions while others, usually the smaller outfits, may abuse the vulnerable position of the workers they supply.
The Cosatu unions are at loggerheads with organised businesses, mainly led by Business Unity of South Africa (Busa), regarding this question.
Cosatu argues that labour brokers should be banned while the business community says that brokers should be regulated rather than outlawed.
In an unusual development, the Federation of South African Trade Unions (Fedusa) agrees with businesses that regulation is the way to go. Masego Lehihi, Busa’s national spokesperson, told Grocott’s Mail that her organisation could not comment about its view on the future of labour brokers.
But the Busa website includes documents that address the question and defends labour brokers. One such document, submitted to government, deals with proposed changes to employment legislation and notes that the banning of brokers (officially referred to as Temporary Employment Solutions) could be counter-productive to labour-intensive economic growth.
Cosatu’s national spokesperson, Patrick Craven, defended the union’s call for the banning of labour brokers saying this system was one of the main causes of the “casualisation of labour”.
He said thousands of workers no longer enjoyed relatively secure and reasonably well-paid jobs with benefits like medical aid and pension. Instead they now worked in highly insecure, temporary and casual jobs with fewer, if any, benefits and the pay was usually low.
Craven disagrees that banning labour brokers will impact negatively on the economy. In an interview with Grocott’s Mail he said that South Africa cannot build a strong, sustainable economy through cheap labour and casual jobs. He said that Cosatu was awaiting the government’s final position on the issue but was concerned that it might not agree to an outright ban.
By contrast, Fedusa’s general secretary Dannis George, said that his organisation wanted labour brokers to be regulated, not banned.
Fedusa was aware of the difficulties posed by brokers and had challenged the ANC about alleged abuses as far back as 2007.
He said that Fedusa wanted any abuses to be dealt with by changes to the law, rather than through an outright ban, and that compliance with the law must be strictly enforced.
What about the view of union officials in Grahamstown? An official of the South African Catering and Commercial Workers Union (Saccawu) Grahamstown office in High Street said that based on the union’s experience at the retail stores where it organises, Saccawu agreed with Cosatu that brokers should be banned. “Employees working under labour brokers are deprived of basic labour and human rights; they work unacceptably long hours; they are not entitled to sick leave; they can’t join trade unions and they can be dismissed without recourse, which is unconstitutional,” said Rocky Kolweni, a local Saccawu organiser in Makana.
Kolweni added that employees hired through labour brokers were afraid to raise their concerns over unfair labour practices because they feared victimisation. It was also difficult to know how to complain, because management at work would refer grievances to the labour broker. The national spokesperson of the department of labour, Page Boikanyo, tentatively commented that discussions between unions, businesses and government were at a “sensitive” stage, and said he did not want to be seen as taking sides.
