Niki Moore
The use of “employment committees”, which accept fees in exchange for guaranteeing jobs, is creating tensions in Zululand between white-owned businesses and traditional leaders.
Several businessmen have confirmed they are victims of the committees, but most were loath to speak on the record for fear of reprisals.
Employment committees are run by junior traditional leaders or aspirant politicians with strong links to traditional leaders. They let it be known that if people join their party or support them, they will be given employment. They then take a “placement” fee.
Once a committee has a group of potential employees, it approaches white-run businesses and informs the owner that it has a list of people who must be employed. If the owner refuses, his shop is at best boycotted – or, at worst, attacked.
The employment committee then takes a monthly commission from the new employee’s pay-packet.
“It’s quite simple how it works,” said a shop owner from Jozini. “We get regular visits from this employment committee who tells us that whenever we are looking for a new employee we can only hire someone whose name is on a list.
“We tell them that we can’t be as blatant as that, so we advertise the position and interview the applicants. When a person whose name is on the list turns up, we hire him. We don’t like it, but it is simply not worth our while to refuse.”
Recently, in Nongoma, a white shop owner was threatened with a boycott purely on the basis of a rumour that he did not close his shop during a political march. The shop had been closed during the march, but little more than a rumour is required for white-owned businesses to become targets.
Another shop owner in Nongoma describes the system as an “unofficial union. These guys take a monthly levy from the employee’s pay packets.
“They say it is a membership fee in order to belong to their organisation. But a union usually has some kind of recognition, some kind of bargaining power, as well as offering benefits to their members. These guys do nothing like that at all.”
At Isithebe, an industrial park west of Mandeni on the Zululand south coast, the employment committee has a political bias. According to African National Congress town councillor Sam Zwane, the agents are Inkatha Freedom Party officials who promise jobs in the industrial park only to bona fide IFP members.
The local Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) office confirmed that it was aware of the practice. “We have received complaints,” said a Cosatu representative, “and we are investigating them. Apart from the problem that some of these agents appear to be connected to a political party, the system is not permissible.”
Nongoma mayor Joe Khumalo was cautious about acknowledging the existence of employment committees. “It is difficult to investigate allegations like these. Firstly, the employee will not complain because he wants to keep his job. Secondly, the employer will not complain because he is afraid that his shop will be boycotted. So who is going to come forward with evidence?”