"Just let me work" - the voice of the unemployed
FMF instigates legal action against restrictive labour laws
Yesterday, the Free Market Foundation (FMF) filed a constitutional challenge to South Africa's Labour Relations Act 1995 in the Gauteng North High Court against respondents: the Minister of Labour; the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development and Bargaining Councils listed below (1).
The basis of the challenge is the constitutionality, negative effects and unintended consequences of the legislation which permits the extension of bargaining council agreements to non-parties. Our challenge is not against the bargaining council system. It is against the system of extension of agreements concluded by private players, to non-parties (LRA S32), which is a function that constitutionally rests with the State.
FMF principle concerns are:
1. That private parties set wages and conditions of employment and these are being extended to competitors and other groups that are not in the bargaining process at all. Under the LRA, these private parties can, under certain circumstances, compel the Minister to publish and extend these agreements to parties who were not in any way involved in these agreements.