NATIONAL CERTIFICATED FISHING & ALLIED WORKERS UNION
(NCFAWU)
Phone: 021 426 5191 47 on Strand, Office 904, Strand Street
Fax: 021 426 5178 Cape Town 8000
E- Mail:
29 August 2009
The Document Officer
Parliamentary Monitoring Group
Parliament
Cape Town
8000
Attention: Pumza Mokorotlo Our Reference- NCF/CONS/LAB-B/09
Re; CONSAWU – Submission- Labour Brokering - August 2009
Our telephone discussion, Friday 28 August 2009 refers:-
We are pleased to attach submissions made by our organization in terms of Labour Broking in South Africa
We further, welcome the opportunity to make such submission to the Portfolio Committee of Parliament and to participate in the furtherance of Social Dialogue on matters affecting:
· Workers in South Africa
· The creation of Decent Work Opportunities
· Inclusive participation of all Stakeholders
· Holistic Approach
We trust hat our submission and participation will provide a basis from which a resolution can be derived that will be in the best interest of our respective members, public and that a basis can be laid for the protection of all workers
Yours Truly
E.F Barros
General Secretary
NCFAWU
072 9525423
VERBAL SUBMISSION ON THE CURRENT STATE OF LABOUR BROKERS IN OUR COUNTRY:
NCFAWU as an affiliate of CONSAWU considers the operations, actions of Labour Brokers as a threat not only to the Trade Union Movement in South Africa but to the Workers, Societies of the World
The activities of the Labour Brokers undermine the essence of:-
- Compliance with Local and International Work Standards and Norms
- It violates, safe and healthy workplace environment
- It undermines Collective Bargaining Processes and subvert Fair Labour Standards
- It Profiteer at the expense of vulnerable workers and the poor
- It is key to destroying and draining skills from one country to another on the basis of highest bidder
- It fails to develop new employment opportunities and skills
- It is a key factor in Human Trafficking and Child Labour Activities
- It violates the right to workers to Decent Employment
- It undermines- Transparent , Equitable and Access to Job Security for Workers
- It most cases – Labour Brokers are faceless and Workers become even worse victims of this scourge.
In South Africa, we portray to subscribe to a Constitution, which enshrines a “Bill of Rights”, with a host of Legislation that is formulated along:-
· Freedom Charter
· Bill Of Rights- Including the Right to Secure Jobs/Not to be Dismissed Unfairly
· Labour Laws that fosters -Equity/ Healthy and Safe Conditions of Employment
· International Conventions/Standards
Having experienced the decay of Employment Conditions for almost every employment category the activities of Labour Brokers has been the source of most of the dilemmas of:
· Exploitation of Workers/Insecurities
· Professional ,Domestic, Youth , Persons with Disabilities and the Poorer sections of Communities
· Violation of grotesque abuses against Employees (Non- payment of Wages, The faceless Employers)
· Internationally workers are left to governments to sort out huge legislative matters, whilst the perpetrators are not answerable.
As a Trade Union affiliated to a Confederation, with same Social Conscience as those workers in South Africa we represent in support of International Organizations such as:-
· United Nations- All its subsidiaries
· ILO –ITUC- Labour Organizations in Africa
· South Africa in all its Regions and Sectors
Which to lay emphasis on amongst other:-
That Labour has an inherent duty to protect the violation of Worker Rights for which so may people have died
NCFAWU is organized in the Fishing Sector and our experiences of Labour Brokers are very real and not only are South Africans affected:-
Filipinos/African Fishers and Seafarers are some of the victims of Labour Brokers who:
1. Recruit in Foreign Lands – After Seafarers are in Foreign countries – In some case working without payment, abused
2. When they wish to challenge “Brokers are gone”
3. In South Africa- Employers use its Disciplinary Measures to dispose of employees only to re-employ through brokers at lower salary scales
It is therefore trite that our organizations have take into cognizance the realistic decay caused as a result of the Actions of Labour Brokers in the context with focus as follows:
1. Who Create Employment?
When a Labour Broker is sourced it done so on the Premise of a needed Skill and thereby places a Worker that have been developed through a period at the expense of someone els
That the worker are “sold” or placed in terms that favour the “actual employer” the Labour Brokers, becomes a “face”
2. Who is the Employer
The definition of who is the Employer as defined in Section 186- 189 LRA (1995) .ILO and other instruments relating to Employer/Employee does not include a Placement Agency or A Labour Broker.
The Labor Broker provides a “Service” and its commodity is Human- Beings for which the Skills, Work of an Employee provides payment for reward to the Broker for Profit with little or no Social Benefit to the employee.
3. What Employment is created by Labour Brokers
Labour Brokers does not create a single Job- It creates opportunity to sell a Commodity called Labour for profit
It does not contribute to sustainable and Decent Employment opportunities and discriminates in terms of Gender and persons with Disabilities
4. Does it Develop Skills?
Labour Brokers does not provide for the Development of Skills, or does it considers the principles of PDI and measures of
It contributes to the “exporting of Scarce Skills and importing those same Skills
On the “Higher Price” basis.
In summarizing the call for Legislative and Government intervention to take action in banning the operations of Labour Brokers in South Africa
Our experience as Labour and that of our members in all Sectors does not make provision that any regulation will protect the exploiting of workers across all spectrums
The actions by Namibia, the historic calls of Developing and in most Developed Economies the Labour Broker activities is being viewed as draconian and its banning is called for
Envor Barros
NCFAWU
General Secretary
072 9525423
LABOUR BROKERS/TEMPORARY EMPLOYMENT AND DECENT WORK
Background
CONSAWU as a labour organisation with 22 affiliates who have a total membership of 289 000 has for some time since its launch in 2003 made it its position to reject any form of casual, or temporary employment. This position has remained not changed by various congresses. The submission below on Labour Broking in response to your public invitation is made with the full recognition that those without material means or material wealth are still entitled to basic decent/dignified standard of living.
Having observed:
These are typical forms of employment (including employment arising from the public works program such as paying people R50, 00 for digging and further being employed by local chiefs or councillors, it cannot be more sadistic than that) have murderous consequences as this firstly is working poverty but more brutal is that the person never gets out of starvation despite this form of employment, the family for which the person is working continue to starve to death. The fact that CONSAWU sees people first in workers is part of what informs its approach to this matter, CONSAWU says workers are human being first, the matter cannot be looked at differently, and we are dealing with human beings here not as taken by some as mere objects in the production process.
Noting that
The United Nations with its agencies has talked about Sustainable Human Development which they define as the process which consists in giving advantage of choice to the men and women to enable them to live longer, more healthily, to be quite informed, to have a decent job and to take part fully in the life of the community.
Central in this definition is a ‘DECENT JOB’ which must have social dialogue, social protection and rights at work. One example on social dialogue, the workers submits a request, the client says no I have not employed you, the request is submitted to the broker, answer,’ I depend on the client’. Some of these Broker/Client arrangements are such that they even exclude the paper right to strike.
The human development index which is often used to measure progress on human development has over a number of years showed a decline from 0,702 in 1985 to 0,670 in 2006 in South Africa. In this period formal employment decreased with both atypical and informal employment (Labour Broking) increasing astronomically. Health, education etc have unfortunately not done any better; we hope there is consensus in that regard. It needs to be mentioned that in excess of 50% of the South African population lives below the poverty line (some people like to debate the poverty line but this has to be simply taken to mean that with which a family cannot live a decent life). Ever increasing unemployment often put around 40% based on expanded definition. Life expectancy at 50.1 years in2006, in effect recently some put life expectancy at below 40 years. There is one common factor while all this is happening; it is during a period of casual/temporary/trilateral/informal employment (Labour Broking). CONSAWU considers a minimum monthly salary of R4000, 00 to can relatively keep body and soul together and as such no working person in South Africa should be paid less than this amount.
We therefore:
Taking the totality of the above mentioned factors and others not specifically mentioned, CONSAWU submits that the under mentioned changes be made:
· The employer currently not defined in ACT No 66 of 1995 is defined to include the client/the entity or person where the employee daily reports to and who originally actually pays the wage or salary.
· The employee definition should delete “excluding an independent contractor” and add that it includes any other person whose monthly income is R5000, 00 or less, a different amount as determined by the minister from time to time. This is intended to integrate a substantial number of people in the informal sector or elsewhere to be covered by such acts as the UIF, COIDA etc.
· The Honourable Minister to legislate an across all sectors minimum wage/salary, incidentally there is such legislated minimum salary in a number of African countries and this suggests that it is overdue in our country. The minimum legal wage/salary should not be less that R 4000, 00 per month. Once a ministerial proclamation or determination is operating, any employer found after proper due process to be paying less than the stipulated amount should without the option of a fine serve a minimum sentence of two years prison sentence.
Conclusion
In any normal game there are basic rules of that game. It cannot be that a benefit which is profit in this case is without responsibility nor should it be said negligible responsibility. Here the responsibility is about human beings and any human being is entitled to a decent/dignified standard of living. The ACT amended in the above fashion may just go some way into addressing this critical matter of Labour Broking
1
Union Registration No: LR 2/6/2/73
NCFAWU IS AN AFFILIATE OFCONSAWU
CONFEDERATION OF SOUTH AFRICAN WORKER UNIONS