Johannesburg - The country's construction sector needs massive transformation, Public Works Minister Thulas Nxesi said on Thursday.
“The industry has to transform and include black professionals. Engineers, surveyors and all sorts of artisans in the sector are male and white,” he told delegates at the National Union of Mineworkers' (NUM) central executive committee meeting in Johannesburg.
“There is no transformation in that sector from where I am sitting.”
A number of industry associations in construction refused to accept collective bargaining, he said.
“NUM is the largest union in the construction sector. You need to organise and make sure social transformation takes place. You must ask yourselves how you are going to force these associations to accept collective bargaining,” Nxesi said.
Job losses in the sector needed a co-ordinated plan. The industry had the worst fatalities and injuries, he said.
“We need a social plan for the industry to mitigate job losses. As workers lose jobs, training programs in the EPWP should be in place to ensure that the EPWP absorbs these workers,” he said, referring to the expanded public works programme.
The sector education training authorities (Setas) needed to start showing good results.
Nxesi said most Congress of SA Trade Unions affiliates sat in Seta boards, but there were no returns.
“It cannot be that leaders from affiliates sit in Setas, but we do not see any results.”
Sapa