There’s still a deficiency in protective labour law

SOUTH African labour union leaders are understandably ecstatic about last week’s Constitutional Court ruling strongly enforcing legislation regarding labour brokers.

They view the court’s ruling as an emphatic blow against the exploitation of vulnerable workers by greedy labour brokers and even expect the eventual demise of labour brokers as currently operating.

In many instances, desperate workers are employed as casual labour indefinitely to evade paying any fringe benefits and are only paid a small fraction of what the employer pays the labour broker.

It is not surprising that many unionists refer to the system of labour brokering as “modern-day slavery”.

Casualisation of labour is increasing exponentially, leaving many workers in a dire position of subsistence wages with no union protection and, invariably, no pension cover to sustain them after retirement.

On more intense investigation, though, it appears the labour union leaders’ happiness is somewhat misplaced.

There is still a glaring deficiency in the protective labour legislation which rogue employers are sure to exploit to the maximum.

Labour brokers can simply increase their labour pool and employ a worker for just under the requisite maximum three-month period for casual labour.

They can then either move that worker on to another employer or terminate his/her employment and replace them with another desperate soul from the vast reservoir of the unemployed masses.

Instead of excitedly crowing about their success in the court, the labour unions will have to find an emphatic way to block typical employer evasiveness and chicanery, or the government will have to man up and prove that it really has the best interests of the working class at heart and ban or strictly regulate labour brokering as it now exists.

There is of course, a certain limited place for casual labour in any country.

There are seasonal jobs, shortterm construction or manufacturing contracts and vacancies for staff to temporarily fill in for absent employees. However unfair indefinite exploitation of casual workers is unacceptable, and once an employment agency has introduced a casual or permanent worker to an employer and received an introduction commission, the relationship with the new employee must cease, and the onus is then on the employer to ensure a scrupulously professional and fair working environment for that employee. RICHARD MAHAPE

Tembisa