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/ 6 September 2009
The Department of Labour’s new director general warns companies to get their employment equity plans in order, writes Lloyd Gedye.
Investigations are underway to determine the cause of fire that left four dead and seven others injured at a boarding house in Cape Town on Friday.
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/ 17 October 2008
Investigations into the collapse of a partially completed Gauteng office block have been put on hold until a worker believed to be trapped is found.
Employees of Nationwide have been left financially stranded because of technical issues surrounding the liquidation of the airline, the United Association of South Africa (Usasa) union said on Wednesday. A Uasa divisional manager said the difficulties arose because the Nationwide group consists of four subsidiaries.
The Department of Labour on Wednesday said the death of nine workers at Gold Fields, the world’s fourth-largest gold producer, would take centre stage when South Africa and its international partners within the International Labour Organisation celebrate World Health and Safety Day at the end of this week.
United States employers cut 20 000 jobs in April in a relatively stable showing for the US labour market as the jobless rate fell a tenth of a percentage point to 5%, the Labour Department said Friday. Despite the negative figure on payrolls, the report was better than expected by private economists, who on average had called a loss of 75 000 jobs.
A ferromanganese smelter near Durban did not insist its workers wear protective dust masks, even though dust levels were sometimes three times more than national legislative limits, a Labour Department inquiry heard on Thursday. The inquiry is investigating 40 alleged cases of manganism that have resulted from workers breathing in fumes.
South Africa’s skills problem remains massive, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said on Wednesday. ”The scale of the problem has become bigger in the interim. There’s a need for us to up our game,” she told a media briefing on the 2007 report of the Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition.
United States employers cut a surprisingly large 80 000 jobs in March, marking the biggest decline in employment in five years, a government report showed on Friday. The mounting job losses swelled the national unemployment rate to 5,1% last month, compared with 4,8% in February.
Stocks tumbled on Thursday as investors recoiled following a further decline in the dollar, spikes in gold and oil prices and a warning that a Carlyle Group fund is near collapse. The major indexes each lost more than 1%; the Dow Jones industrial average at times fell more than 200 points.
United States Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton questioned each other’s sincerity and leadership on national security and the economy on Friday as they geared up for the next tests in a gruelling struggle for the White House. Clinton told audiences in Wyoming it was time to end the Iraq war that she backed in 2002.
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/ 26 February 2008
An application to have a Labour Department inquiry into workers’ exposure to poisonous fumes at a Cato Ridge ferromanganese smelter dismissed because of alleged bias was itself dismissed to loud cheers on Tuesday afternoon by the inquiry’s presiding officer, departmental inspector Vuli Sibisi.
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/ 25 February 2008
An explosion that ripped through a ferromanganese smelter near Durban on Sunday and claimed the lives of five people sparked protests by workers as a Labour Department inquiry into workers’ exposure to poisonous fumes was about to start on Monday morning.
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/ 24 February 2008
At least one person was killed and another nine critically injured in an explosion at a ferromanganese smelter in Cato Ridge near Durban on Sunday morning, emergency services said. The Durban fire brigade was attending the scene at the Assmang ferromanganese smelter 60km from Durban.
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/ 22 February 2008
A formal inquiry by the Department of Labour into the exposure of poisonous fumes at a Cato Ridge manganese company will begin on Monday. The inquiry follows six cases of manganism that were reported at the Assmang plant. Manganism is acquired by overexposure to airborne manganese.
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/ 13 February 2008
Attempts to reach an out-of-court settlement between a KwaZulu-Natal ferromanganese factory and its workers over compensation for manganese poisoning foundered on Wednesday. The workers’ trade union and attorney accused the company, Assmang, of negotiating in bad faith.
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/ 30 January 2008
United States growth skidded lower in the fourth quarter and was the weakest in five years for all of 2007, according to a government report on Wednesday that highlighted the toll an enfeebled housing sector has taken on the national economy. The dollar’s value declined against other major currencies on the soft GDP data.
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/ 30 January 2008
Trade union Solidarity on Wednesday demanded that the Department of Labour publish a detailed report about an explosion at Sasol in which 10 people were killed. ”Solidarity demands publication about the 2004 Sasol explosion within 48 hours,” said union spokesperson Jaco Kleynhans.
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/ 29 January 2008
Chinese premier Wen Jiabao took a bullhorn in hand to encourage stranded passengers in the snow-bound city of Changsha, as unusually severe winter weather snarled transport throughout the south amidst the country’s worst power crisis.
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/ 28 November 2007
The South African National Defence Force Union on Wednesday threatened to lay a criminal charge against Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota for contravening the Occupational Health and Safety Act. The union also wants the Labour Department to take action against the South African National Defence Force for non-compliance with health and safety legislation.
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/ 21 November 2007
A number of kulula.com crew members went on a tongue-in-cheek swimming outing on Wednesday. The outing was an ”act of defiance against the bizarre claim by the Labour Department that kulula.com doesn’t hire crew who cannot swim”, said Comair spokesperson Glenda Zvenyika.
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/ 18 November 2007
Comair will not be bullied by an inefficient and ineffective government department, the company said on Sunday. It was responding to accusations by the Department of Labour that the company did not hire black people. Comair’s joint CEO Erik Venter said: ”These allegations are not only blatantly false but also defamatory.”
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/ 2 November 2007
The Department of Labour said on Friday that preliminary findings of the ongoing inspections of compliance by the South African iron and steel industry painted a picture of an industry "fraught with high disregard of labour legislation countrywide".
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/ 25 October 2007
The use of consultants cost the Department of Labour over R23-million in the last financial year, the department said on Thursday. According to the department’s own documentation, it spent R23 601 014,40 on nine different contracted experts, including auditors and trainers, during the last financial year.
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/ 25 October 2007
All wild abalone (perlemoen) fishing will be suspended from November 1 to ensure the survival of the species, the government announced on Thursday. A social plan to address the job losses resulting from the decision has been approved, government communications head Themba Maseko said.
South African Police Service (SAPS) offices in Cullinan, near Pretoria, have been shut down after they were found to constitute a health threat, the Department of Labour said on Monday. Department spokesperson Zolisa Sigabi said the Crime Investigation Department building was shut down on Friday for contravening the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
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/ 26 September 2007
The recently launched pension fund and funeral cover for domestic workers should not be confused with the benefits offered by the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF), the Department of Labour said on Wednesday. Spokesperson Kgomotso Sebetso stressed that the pension fund is a private initiative.
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/ 7 September 2007
Most professional football teams are making unemployment insurance fund (UIF) payments but they are still contravening the Act, the Labour Department said on Friday. Department spokesperson Kgomotso Sebetso said 90% of employers were submitting a bulk sum in payments each month but not the breakdown of the players’ details.