New research shows that casual labour strips workers of their rights, and causes divisions among workers
Glenda Daniels
Labour market flexibility impoverishes households and marginalises workers from the workplace, according to recent research.
Speaking at a labour seminar at the University of the Witwatersrand, Bridget Kenny, a researcher at the sociology of work unit who conducted the research, said restructuring in the retail industry which has taken place internationally has shown the emergence of large stores with the increased use of flexible female labour. And South Africa is no exception to this trend.
The increasing spin-off from downsizing is the corresponding increase in the use of casual labour. In just two years, in the retail industry for instance, full-time average labour has gone down from 87% to 81%, as unprotected casual labour increases.
But the casualisation of labour has had a seriously negative effect on the lives of workers. The research among retail workers in the East Rand showed the following trends: it caused job insecurity, division between non-unionised and unionised workers, unfair stratification of wages and impoverished households.
The research was conducted among casual, subcontracted and permanent workers, and showed major differences in wage levels and working conditions between the three categories. Whereas a casual employee earned R7 a hour (or R550 a month) and worked an eight- to 24-hour week, a permanent worker earned R10 a hour (R1 800 a month) and worked a 45-hour week.
Casuals complained that in the past they could work a set three-day week, but now they could go down to as low as one day a week. This makes their work schedules erratic, the consequence of which contributes to an unpredictable monthly earning.
The majority of subcontracted and casual workers felt they would not get promotions. They were insecure about their jobs and felt that if they took leave in accordance with the no work no pay rule they might not have their jobs when they came back.
Subcontracted workers, who more often than not have more than one employer, said they did not receive any benefits such as pension or medical aid. Ninety- four per cent of permanent workers reported that they received full company benefits as opposed to 28% of subcontracted workers, while casuals did not receive benefits.
Kenny’s research showed that the majority of permanent staff were unionised, while only 7% of subcontracted workers and even fewer casuals were unionised. Unionisation caused conflict because when casuals were encouraged to join the union they found their specific issues were not taken up by the union, which focused on the permanent workers.
Labour-market flexibility has not taken into account the longer-term economic effect on households, says Kenny.
The findings showed a major difference in levels of access to water, electricity, a flush toilet and a telephone if a household had no full- time permanent worker.
In other words, Kenny explains, where there was one full-time earner in a family there was a marked decline in poverty levels. In households where there were only casual workers poverty levels were high and there was likely to be no access to a flush toilet, telephone, electricity and running water.
“The longer-term effect on the economy is impoverishment. Recent statistics by Stats SA showing a formal sector decrease in jobs and informal increasing is not an optimistic result. My research shows that access to a full-time job in the formal sector drives a line between the real poor and those that survive as a household,” says Kenny.
Flexibility, according to a paper by Kenny and Edward Webster of the sociology of work unit, can take the form of multi- tasking, shift work, wage flexibility through gearing the wages to the person, temporary workers, contract and part-time workers.
These terms of employment can make it easier for employers to hire and fire.
Flexiwork was introduced at the same time that South Africa’s democratically elected government tried to extend basic core rights and standards to large sectors of the workforce that have in the past been excluded from the core labour- regulation regime, according to Kenny and Webster in Eroding the Core: Flexi-bility and the Re-segmentation of the South African Labour Market.
They point out that the shift by employers towards “flexiwork” in combination with high unemployment is causing an increasingly polarised labour market, consisting of a growing number of marginalised “flexiworkers” next to a “core” workforce that feels the threat of insecurity.
Kenny and Webster say that although the labour movement has committed itself to organise “flexiworkers”, it is a long way from innovative responses to the challenge of flexibility.
Trade unions, the paper says, grew dramatically from 700 000 in 1979 to nearly three million members in the late 1990s.
Then, in terms of the Labour Relations Act (1995), workers’ rights were firmly entrenched and included public service, farm and domestic workers. Collective bargaining was promoted and institutions set up so that labour was given a voice unprecedented in South African history.
However, by 1996 these gains by labour triggered major debate over labour market reform. Employers feel that the new labour relations runs against the global trend of flexibility. But Kenny and Webster argue that the drive by employers to create more flexibility is an attempt to reduce labour costs and undermine the core rights of workers won by labour over the past two decades.
And at the centre of restructuring in companies today is the drive for flexibility. This is going to be one issue in changes to the Labour Relations Act towards the end of the year, when business is expecting the labour regulations in the Basic Conditions of Employment Act to be more flexible in terms of pay for Sunday work, public holiday work and remuneration for overtime, among other issues.
Unionised workers in the mining industry have felt the severe effects of flexibility through the use of subcontracted labour in the form of division between workers.
Kenny and Webster cite an example: “Unionised mineworkers claimed that subcontract workers were unlikely to be unionised. ‘They do our work, such as driving locomotives – they take our jobs. They are not members of the union.’
“A number of workers had the impression that contractors actively discouraged subcontracted workers from joining trade unions. One National Union of Mineworkers member said: ‘They [subcontracted workers] do not join the union. I think it’s the system of the contract workers not to join the union. I think the whites who control contract labour tell the contract workers not to join the union. If a worker joins the union, he is fired.’
“Another member felt that contract workers were being used to weaken the union: ‘Contract labour is not unionised. They are using them to fight us [the union] because we cause strikes.'”