Cape Town - The Department of Employment and Labour said the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) has received 190 large-scale retrenchment referrals and 1 307 small-scale retrenchment referrals since last month.
They also revealed that employment and labour saw a slight improvement in safety compliance while the compensation fund (CF) recorded an increased claim, saying the CCMA has been working hard to limit retrenchments and that the processes would be updated next month owing to the 60 days requirement that may be extended for the process to be finalised.
“What should be noted is that the compliance rate for the general industry sector has been at a relatively constant of 57% with very little variance since the beginning, while the government sector similarly has been at a very low compliance rate of 47% over the same period, again, with very little variance,” said the department’s inspector-general, Aggy Moiloa.
Moiloa said there were more than 533 prohibition notices served over the period with a further 3077 served overall. She said more than 4400 inspections were carried out in the private sector since March 27 and 385 prohibitions notices were served, 470 notices of improvements and 1445 contraventions. Most notices were served by KwaZulu-Natal, followed by the Western Cape.
“We believe that all workplaces need to take extra care to ensure healthy and safe environments, especially with the pandemic upon us. The slight improvement is a positive step and we urge accelerated improvements in compliance,” Moiloa said.
Teboho Thejane, department spokesperson, said the news of the slight decline and unremarkable improvements come in the wake of an updated directive that the department has issued with regard to Covid-19 infections in the workplace and the CF had seen increased claims.
Thejane said in terms of relieving the stress of lockdown, the UIF has paid close to R40billion (R38.5bn with another half-a-billion scheduled for payment today), which was the figure that it had committed to before announcing that the period of Covid-19 Temporary Employer Relief Scheme (Ters) would be extended in keeping with the period of disaster to August15.
He said more importantly, the UIF had made great strides in closing the gaps of outstanding payments, with more than R1.5bn paid since the beginning of the month specially dedicated to outstanding payments over and above other payments.
UIF commissioner Teboho Maruping said: “We have had many sobering and intense negotiations with all the partners over the last week or so and many of the areas of disagreement have been ironed out, and we are all committed to making a real difference to the people of this country.”
Maruping said the intervention of putting R40bn directly in the hands of workers in the country was unprecedented. “I believe that this intervention has shored up our economy and to a great extent, has carried it over the worst of the effects of the pandemic.”
Cape Argus