Future of workers is bleak, say experts

Their rights being eroded in favour of attracting investors

AHEAD of May Day tomorrow, some labour experts and trade unions fear workers’ rights are being eroded in an effort to please business, attract investors and grow the fiscus. Labour law and mediation expert Professor Brian Williams said the future for workers’ rights in the country looked bleak.

“It is necessary for there to be a regulatory balance between the worker and management in a way that promotes the constitution. Fundamentally, employers have greater power than employees – the role of the law is to balance this. But in reality workers are still subjected to different forms of imbalance in power,” he said.

Trade unions were exceptionally weak with 80% of workers not unionised.

Williams said he feared more laws would be put in place to favour the employer in order that the employer made more money to go to taxes and for the country to be more attractive for investors at the cost of the human factor – the worker.

“Current changes in the labour law open space for companies to generate economic value,” he said.

His views were shared by South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) deputy secretary-general Moleki Phakedi, who said: “The right to strike is being undermined; workers are signed off by law into poverty with the national minimum wage. For Workers’ Day we call on workers to defend their rights. In this country labour relations are a self-serving set-up.”

Labour lawyer Michael Bagraim said the proposed law of getting labour ministers to break deadlocks was groundbreaking.

He said if the law had been put in place a while ago, incidents such as the Marikana mine workers massacre could have been averted. With the number of strikes in the country the proposed secret ballot legislature, which would require unions to have a secret ballot voting process before striking, was also important. “This is giving back power to the employees,” Bagraim said.

The country had the best labour laws, but was unable to monitor the implementations of those laws. He said that with 300 000 businesses there were only 1 200 labour inspectors.

The national minimum wage would also see 750 000 job losses.

Cosatu provincial secretary Tony Ehrenreich said the minimum wage was a step in the right direction. “It is low, but is also a new standard across the country and will benefit 4.5 million workers. We are working towards getting a R6 500 living wage,” he said.

The Federation of Unions of South Africa called on the government to speed up the parliamentary process leading to the enactment of the National Minimum Wage Act of R3 500 a month. The unions will hold rallies across the country tomorrow.