South African Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana told the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) in a Cape Town seminar that the commission plays a vital role in protecting the rights of the most vulnerable of workers.
Mdladlana said the Labour Relations Act provides a simplified dispute resolution process that aims to achieve effective and cheap resolution of complaints based on a conciliatory approach.
The CCMA, the minister added, plays a critical role in actively conciliating and arbitrating disputes.
“The Department of Labour in its efforts to improve the working conditions of our people since the advent of democracy wants to encourage you as commissioners and other major role players in the labour field to operate in the spirit of conciliation in continuing to build a fair and equitable labour dispensation,” the minister said.
The seminar, which had trade union and employer representatives, employers and members of the legal fraternity in attendance, focused on jobs and the significance of legislation as amended last year in minimising job losses and ensuring a fair and orderly retrenchment process.
The minister also told the seminar that employees who voluntarily resign are not entitled to Unemployment Insurance Fund benefits and this was a decision taken with the aim of both limiting the financial exposure of the fund and ensuring people remain in employment.
“Workers should not just resign with the current levels of unemployment, but should protect their jobs. If we allow people who voluntarily resign to collect benefits, we are not encouraging people to protect their jobs,” the minister added.
“The challenge is to ensure that we increase the pace of job creation and make such jobs available to the majority of our people. The economically active population has grown faster than the jobs created. Our economy needs more and more skilled workers,” the minister said.
He added that the Growth and Development Summit made a commitment on joint partnerships with business to promote learnerships in the private sector and the public service for at least 72 000 learners by May next year.
“Since the summit, Transnet has committed itself to taking on an additional 1 929 youngsters, Eskom an extra couple of hundred within its own organisation and a further 1 500 in partnership with the Department of Minerals and Energy Affairs as part of the commitment to deliver free basic electricity to households in the Eastern Cape, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal.
“At this rate we will achieve our National Skills Development Strategy target of 80 000 youngsters in learnerships a year early,” the minister said.
Mdladlana added that this is coupled with the firm commitment by private-sector employers as well as government departments to take on young, unemployed people into learnerships.
“Multiply this intervention by the many others that are taking place across the length and breadth of the country and one can see that this constitutes a part of the fulfilment of this government’s commitment to deliver a better life for all,” the minister concluded. — I-Net Bridge