Today, as thousands of workers around South Africa celebrate Workers’ Day, a spectre of casual employment and the soaring cost of living threatens to eat into their gains made since the dawn of democracy.
Evidence is mounting that although union leaders can pretend to be unfazed by these challenges, in reality the latest employment trends and political developments are a sign that even the favourable labour laws are under siege.
The difficult time faced by workers is exacerbated by the souring of relations between two of their political formations, trade union federation Cosatu and its ally, the SA Communist Party.
The two organisations are not only at odds on how to advance the interests of the workers in President Jacob Zuma’s administration, but are also struggling to influence the ANC to implement the worker-friendly policies promised at the ruling party’s Polokwane conference in 2007.
It appears that this May Day workers have little to celebrate and can no longer just bask in old glory of the establishment of the Labour Relations Act.
The latest statistics by JSE-listed job placement company, Adcorp, show that since January 2000 permanent employment declined by 20.9 percent while contract and other forms of employment increased by 64.1 percent. This, says the company’s March employment index, means that only 1.9 million South Africans were employed into permanent jobs while 2.4 million were hired into temporary jobs since 2000.
The rising tide of casual employment flies in the face of Cosatu’s “decent job” campaign to have people employed in permanent work with full security and benefits.
There are also growing fears that the ANC’s mooted youth wage subsidy – one of the initiatives to create 5 million jobs in the next decade – could give employers ammunition to replace permanent workers with young contract workers.
Even promises by Finance Minster Pravin Gordhan to inject R150 billion to create the 5 million jobs could be undermined by an unemployment crisis, says a new book, In the New Divide, sponsored by Adcorp.
The book notes that inflexible labour regulations, a skills shortage, and the country’s lack of competitiveness could impede job-creation efforts.
It says that for every worker in South Africa today, there are three job-seekers. This means that workers in permanent jobs face stiff competition from their unemployed counterparts, who are willing to settle for contract work.
South Africa’s labour laws are also increasingly facing challenges from international investors who want to use casual labour in South Africa.
Restrictive labour regulations were among the factors that discouraged investors from doing business in South Africa and could be blamed for job losses, said the Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2011, published yearly by the World Economic Forum.
Cosatu is battling to convince the ANC to ban labour brokers as the ruling party insists on regulating them.
As workers face challenges to the form of their employment, their salary increases are slowly being outweighed by increases in food prices.
Workers in South Africa are facing tough times while some of their employers lead a lavish lifestyle and donate hundreds and thousands to the ANC instead of paying them.
Thousands of miners remain unpaid at the Grootvlei and Orkney mines owned by Zuma’s nephew Khulubuse and Nelson Mandela’s grandson Zondwa.
Khulubuse recently donated R1 million to the ANC.
Samela Manene, the general secretary of the National Council of Trade Unions, said there was nothing much for workers to celebrate because inequality and unemployment had risen, despite the country’s good labour laws.
“We are not denting (unemployment). We are looking at ways in which we can deal with the challenges,” he said, adding that corruption was the biggest problem facing the country.
Turning to the saga at Aurora, he said this proved that something was wrong with the country’s laws.
“They (the owners of Aurora) are doing nothing, they are making a lot of money and don’t care.
“You can see how ugly the laws can be if they are not implemented to protect the workers. Government should have moved in quickly to protect the workers,” he said.
Mbhazima Shilowa, the embattled Cope deputy president, who served as the general secretary of Cosatu before Vavi, said he had mixed feelings about the May Day celebrations.
He said workers could celebrate when it comes to their rights, but there was little to celebrate on the socio-economic front.
“Many still live in poverty, there is no sanitation, no electricity and no paved roads,” Shilowa said, adding that Aurora was a prime example of the disheartening situation facing workers. - Sunday Independent