Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Wednesday the organisation’s ”worst employer” award, to be announced at its congress in September, was hotly contested.
”Yes, it’s hotly contested,” Vavi said to much laughter at a media conference in Johannesburg.
The union federation is to hold its eighth congress in Midrand in September, and would again be presenting a brick to South Africa’s worst employers at the conference.
”It’s an interesting and innovative way of putting pressure on employers to comply with labour law,” he said.
Ten unlucky employers would be selected from nominations which must reach Cosatu by August 14, Vavi said.
Members of affiliated unions, and the Department of Labour, would be asked to make nominations; and, yes, a company can receive a brick twice.
However, Vavi had good words for some previous recipients of the award.
”We gave Placer Dome (SA Pty Ltd) the brick and now they may be considered a model company [in terms of labour law] after only three years,” he said.
Cosatu president Willie Madisha said employers who had said they rejected the tenants of the Labour Relations Act, and the types of people who forced workers to ”sleep with dogs” were obvious nominees.
In April, two Taiwanese nationals were arrested in Kempton Park in connection with assaulting their teenage domestic and forcing her to have sex with a German Shepherd. – Sapa