The Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) has disputed an International Monetary Fund (IMF) report blaming high unemployment in South Africa on inflexible labour laws.
”Once again the IMF has failed to provide significant evidence that our labour laws are inflexible and a hindrance to employment growth,” Cosatu spokesperson Paul Notyhawa said on Thursday.
He said Cosatu remained deeply sceptical of the IMF’s country report released in September. In particular the comments made in relation to the continued need for more labour market flexibility in South Africa.
”While the report attempts to provide some anecdotal evidence to suggest that the South African labour market remains inflexible in certain areas, it continues to lack sufficient evidence and research on those areas identified as being too inflexible — the high cost of dismissals, rigid collective bargaining structures and minimum wage setting in vulnerable sectors,” he said.
Notyhawa said evidence presented by the SA Small Business Partnership in its June 2005 report suggested lack of confidence and demand in the economy and not labour legislation as the main reason.
He said of the 1&bsp;794 business respondents surveyed only 10% felt high labour costs were constraining employment.
Another point of dispute, he said, was the IMF belief that dismissing staff was expensive.
He said while one should not confuse operational and disciplinary dismissals, there was no data available that measured the true cost of dismissals in South Africa.
”It remains our view from our own experience that employers have relatively easy procedures for dismissing employees, particularly when it comes to operational dismissals,” Notyhawa said.
He said Cosatu also dismissed IMF claims that collective bargaining structures in South Africa were over-centralised.
He said there were 48 bargaining councils in South Africa, covering only 26% of the employed.
”It is therefore a myth, in our view, that our system of collective bargaining is rigid and we do not support the IMF view that this is a contributory factor in low employment growth,” Notyhawa said. – Sapa