If the South African government wishes to resolve this country's unemployment problem, it must allow citizens to be adults and to have the freedom to negotiate their own terms of employment. Legislating people into employment cannot solve the unemployment problem. If the proposed amendments announced by newly appointed Minister of Labour, Nelisiwe Oliphant, at the final cabinet meeting of 2010 are passed, they will exacerbate this unacceptable, economy-killing and soul-destroying situation.
The four bills open for public comment until 17 February are, the Basic Conditions of Employment; Labour Relations; Employment Equity, and Employment Services Bills.
The proposal to eliminate labour brokering in SA has attracted the most criticism. Unsurprisingly, trade unions are vehemently opposed to labour brokers. COSATU's general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, has said, "We want a total ban of the system that has condemned so many to new slavery by what [hasbecome] known as human traffickers." But we have to be very aware that if the proposed amendments are passed, and the trade unions get what they want, unemployment in SA will skyrocket.
A labour broker or "temporary employment service" is defined in Section 198 of the Labour Relations Act (LRA) as a person who, for reward, provides another person to a client to work for that client for remuneration. Section 198 also provides that the temporary employment service (i.e. the "labour broker") is regarded as the employer of the worker in question. Thereby, the labour broker, not the client, is the employer of the worker. This effectively allows the client to outsource all his labour requirements (including labour law problems) to the labour broker. The reason why this round about way of doing business has developed is due entirely to our existing labour legislation. The laws meant to protect workers create such an unnecessary and intolerable burden on employers that they prefer to pay labour brokers a fee to administer their staffing requirements and problems
The proposal is that Section 198 of the LRA should be repealed and replaced by the Employment Services Bill. According to a new, stricter definition of "employer" included in this proposed Bill, no temporary employment service will be able to be the employer of any workers that it places in work, effectively bringing an end to labour broking as we know it. How can we let this be when Loane Sharp from Adcorp Holdings says, "labour broking [is]...responsible for about 1-million South Africans in work on any given day, and is the single biggest and most effective channel for introducing never-employed black youth into the labour market"?
Labour brokers provide valuable employment for those who voluntarily seek out their services rather than face the bleak alternative of being unemployed. It makes no sense to ban them. If, what the unions are clambering for, every employer is forced into having a fixed, permanent workforce whose members can be dismissed only with difficulty, employers are going to think twice before hiring new workers. The obvious, unavoidable consequence of this will be an increase in unemployment.