Cabinet has moved to quash speculation that South Africa’s rigid labour legislation might be eased in the interests of job creation following pronouncements on the matter from, among others, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel.
Briefing the media on Thursday following Cabinet’s regular Wednesday fortnightly meeting, government spokesperson Jimmy Manyi said Cabinet wanted to “place on record” that the labour department was the lead department on all labour matters.
As far as Cabinet was concerned, the only labour law amendments under consideration were those being processed by Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant through the National Economic Development and Labour Council processes.
“Cabinet reiterates that South Africa’s labour laws are in compliance with the International Labour Organisation,” Manyi said.
That’s not what Gordhan said
On August 15, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan suggested South Africa might have to relax its labour laws in certain cases to grow jobs.
“We may have to change the way we see the labour dispensation in South Africa,” he told an internal auditors’ conference in Johannesburg.
For example, a balance needed to be found to retain the jobs of 10Â 000 people working at clothing factories in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal, while still allowing them to earn a reasonable wage and keeping the factories open.
Factories in the area had threatened to close down and relocate to Lesotho or Botswana if they were forced to pay minimum wages.
Gordhan said laws might also have to be relaxed to allow young people to enter the workplace and gain skills and experience at lower wages, but not at the expense of people who already had jobs.
Unless such changes were made, “we will not be able to make the breakthrough we need to create jobs in South Africa”.
However, this would be done in the awareness of the struggle against apartheid for human rights, decent work, and decent wages, he said.
Manuel’s labour
Two days later, former finance minister and now Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel appeared to endorse Gordhan’s suggestion that labour laws might need to be relaxed to create more jobs.
In the National Assembly, opposition leader Athol Trollip asked Manuel whether he agreed with Gordhan’s “assertion that we would have to look at restrictive labour legislation if we are to create more jobs in the economy”.
Manuel replied that he had studied the text of Gordhan’s speech, and this was but one snippet.
However, he then said: “I think what he said is a position that I would endorse wholeheartedly. We must let nothing stand in the way of job creation in this country.”
During the global financial crises, the economy lost one million jobs, and according to Statistics SA, the official unemployment rate currently stands at 25.7%.
Job creation plans
The New Growth Path envisages the creation of five million jobs by 2020, but the country needs to sustain growth at 7% a year for some time to alleviate unemployment.
Later on Thursday, the Democratic Alliance said Cabinet’s refusal to reconsider the current labour dispensation to create more jobs was a blow to all unemployed South Africans.
“Labour market rigidity is a major driver of our country’s jobs crisis,” DA spokesperson Ian Ollis said.
Job-creating growth and redress required a government that unequivocally committed to a pro-growth and pro-jobs agenda.
“Some in this government agree. But they are being held hostage by the ANC’s alliance partners who have shown that they are not serious about tackling the unemployment crisis.
“It is time government developed the political will to put the interests of millions of unemployed South Africans first,” Ollis said.
‘Right-wing attempts to weaken labour laws’
However, Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven said the federation would “fight right-wing attempts to weaken labour laws”.
“While executives continue to laugh all the way to the bank, with massive remuneration packages, millions of workers continue to earn starvation wages, from which they are forced to support more family members due to high levels of unemployment, and have suffered massive casualisation, including through intensive usage of labour brokers as a clear strategy by companies to circumvent progressive labour laws.
“We will never let them get away with making these laws even more ‘flexible’ to allow even higher levels of exploitation,” he said. — Sapa