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EZULWINI – The Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration Commission (CMAC) has joined hands with the South African Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) to improve their response to labour cases that are brought to their attention.

The partnership was cemented by a signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the two governmental bodies in their respective countries. CMAC is a statutory body and derives its mandate from enabling statutes being the Industrial Relations (IR) Act. In order for the body to improve its services, it benchmarked itself among the best in the Southern African Region bodies by offering similar services and entered in a partnership with the CCMA. The CCMA which is the South African version of CMAC boasts having the shortest turnaround time in terms of solving cases, yet it receives on average 200 000 labour cases annually, which are solved within 30 days and has strong mechanisms in enforcing their decisions. Recently, it had the cleanest financial audits among others areas of excellency.

Signing

CMAC Executive Director Dr Lomkhosi Magagula, speaking during the signing ceremony which was graced by CCMA Executive Director Cameron Morahjane and commissioners said in order for the CMAC to improve its services internally and externally, they signed an MoU that stipulated four main areas of focus and meeting the standards stipulated by the IR. The first area of collaboration is governance and strategy. This area looks at issues of governance within CMAC, which details how CMAC can improve its structure including issues of reporting the correct information to each of their relevant stakeholders. She said they were also looking into dispute resolutions as their second pillar, which was the core focus that puts into place both social justice and dispute resolution. She added that they were also looking into fairness and accessibility. The executive director said that pillar was important because they serviced a certain economic group that might not have the resources to use other platforms. She said the partnership would enable them to see how they benchmark their manner of dispute resolution, as well as see areas of improvement and those of best practice. She highlighted that during COVID-19 they were unable to secure a case management system that enabled them to register and solve labour dispute cases.

Shutdown

“CMAC was in total shutdown during COVID-19, yet the CCMA was operating,” she said.

This was because they had an online system that enabled them not to halt operations at the height of the pandemic. They only allowed walk-ins early last year.

Meanwhile, CCMA Director Cameron Morahjane emphasised on the need to improve the turnaround time for labour dispute cases. He said in order for a governmental labour dispute body to be effective and be trusted by the population, its turnaround time should not be long. He said the first pillar of ensuring a short turnaround time for cases was elimination of case postponement.

“Avoid unnecessary postponement of cases,” he said. The director said continued postponements made cases to drag. He said in most cases, the person who was oppressed ended up suffering humiliation and losing money in cases where the complainant was an employee. He said at the CCMA, they solved labour disputes within 30 days and that they had a 99 per cent success rate therefore, CMAC should emulate same.

He also urged CMAC to have a proper enforcement mechanism which would enable all parties to implement the decision taken by CMAC. Morahjane commended CMAC for its wise spending in terms of rentals, but said it was crucial for the parastatal to come up with income generating projects, so that it did not rely on the government budget only.

CMAC Board Chairperson Mzwandile Dlamini said the MoU between the two will not only improve labour issues but the economy as well. He said workers and employers were the driving forces of the economy. Therefore, if disputes were solved accordingly or mostly prevented, the production cycle and politics would be stable. He highlighted that most of political issues originated from unsolved labour issues, hence the need to strengthen labour dispute solving mechanisms.