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Marianne Merten
Under pressure from civil society, the Department of Labour is speeding up the investigation into how best to include domestic and seasonal workers in the proposed revised unemployment benefits.
Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana could announce the probe as soon as mid-May with regulations to follow within 12 months of the Unemployment Insurance Bill becoming law as anticipated in April 2002.
Initially the Bill expressly excluded South Africa’s estimated one million domestic workers and tens of thousands of seasonal workers. It required recommendations into the feasibility of their inclusion to be made within 18 months after the legislation came into force. But this week various NGOs, church groups, trade unions and the Commission on Gender Equality joined forces to press for this investigation to be completed by the end of the year.
After almost a decade of struggling for the extension of benefits it is hoped that domestic and seasonal workers are eligible for these benefits the moment the new law is enacted.
The Unemployment Insurance Bill was strongly criticised and slammed as unconstitutional during parliamentary hearings in March because it expressly excluded domestic and seasonal workers from unemployment, maternity, adoption and illness benefits.
The Bill is aimed at overhauling the cash-strapped Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) to extend benefits, increase the collection of employers’ contributions and eliminate abuse.
UIF commissioner Shadrack Mkhonto said labour officials this week met to prepare the investigation’s terms of reference and to consider the input it received from civil society.
The investigation would look at all domestic employment relations to ensure workers did not fall outside the social security net.
“Currently they have access to rights under the Basic Conditions of Employment but these rights cannot be exercised,” he said.
The investigation would look at the most cost-effective and efficient means to collect UIF contributions from the employers of domestic and seasonal workers. At this stage options include municipalities, parastatals like Telkom or Eskom and the South African Revenue Service.
The labour department’s revised timetable for the investigation and subsequent regulations has been handed to Parliament’s labour portfolio committee. However, it is understood that several NGOs are unhappy with these and could submit their own draft legislation.