Pretoria - The phasing-out of the outsourcing of workers came under the spotlight last week, during an EFF-led march to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in Sunnyside.
During the protest, a group of EFF members descended on the department’s offices and demanded that cleaners and security guards be in-sourced after they had worked there for decades.
Clad in their party’s regalia, protesters started to gather in the morning, armed with placards bearing anti-outsourcing messages.
Chanting “down with outsourcing down” they vociferously called on the government to eliminate the use of contracted private companies under which the cleaners and security personnel worked.
They sang Struggle songs as the police kept an eye on the situation to ensure things remained calm.
Picketers denounced the practice of appointing “middle men” to hire workers, saying it was exploitative in nature because it mostly benefited private companies and not employees.
Leader of EFF regional labour desk, Baatseba Nchabeleng, said the party suspected that the service providers had for years been in cahoots with the department to net lucrative contracts for offering cleaning and security services.
“We have a situation whereby service providers are occupying and manipulating the processes of employment, and we suspect they are in cahoots with officials of the DTI,” she said.
Under outsourcing, Nchabeleng said, the employees were deprived of labour benefits such as pension funds and medical aids.
She said the insourcing of workers by the department would change their situation for the better as they would start earning better salaries like public servants.
“With insourcing in place, workers will get all the benefits that come with working under the government. And it will also save taxpayers’ money because these private service providers collect most of the profit they get from tenders and workers are given peanuts,” Nchabeleng said.
In their memorandum of demands, the EFF said: “The DTI must initiate its internal procurement mechanism rather than giving all authority and power to RainProp in the outsourcing of services to private companies.”
RainProp has been in a public private partnership with the DTI for 25 years to design, build, finance and operate the new department head office campus, according to the company’s website.
According to Nchabeleng, RainProp was the main service provider appointed to hire contracted cleaners and security guards.
She said the company must follow due process in procuring services from outsourced companies instead of prioritising nepotism and corruption.
Nchabeleng gave the DTI a seven-day ultimatum to respond to the memorandum, saying failure to do so would force the EFF “to intensify the struggle”.
Neither RainDrop nor the DTI responded to the demands made by the EFF.
Pretoria News