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1. Introduction
Today, 7th October, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) joins millions of workers across the world to mark the "World Day for Decent Work" - to tackle the global economic and employment crisis and demand fundamental reform of the world economy.
The 2010 Day of Action on Decent Work focuses on the following demands for economic recovery:
• Growth and decent jobs, not austerity, are essential to beating the crisis and ending poverty;

• Quality public services must not be slashed; and,

• The financial sector must pay for the damage it has caused.

Decent work as conceptualised by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) entails the following important pillars:
• Achieving fundamental principles and rights at work;
• The creation of greater employment and income opportunities for women and men;
• Extending social protection; and
• Promoting social dialogue.
The COSATU 10th National Congress noted with concern that in the past decade there had been a dramatic increase in atypical and non-standard forms of employment. Accordingly Congress resolved that the federation must continue with the campaign for decent work as contained in the 2015 Plan adopted by 8th National Congress.
This campaign for decent work and against labour broking in particular, is part of the federation's broad Jobs and Poverty Campaign launched in 1999. Since then we have held countless marches, demonstrations, petitions and six national strikes. Thanks to this campaign, the decent work agenda occupied number one spot in the 2009 ANC elections manifesto, and is now a top priority in government programmes.
In keeping with this decent work agenda, the federation has resolved to campaign for the banning of labour brokers. There is an increasing reliance on labour brokers by employers with the primarily aim of preventing workers from enjoying their collective and individual rights and benefits and transferring the true employers obligations to third parties.
Workers with labour brokers are generally subjected to precarious employment conditions and paid starvation wages, with little job security. Labour brokers fragment individual workplace and entire industries, thereby undermining organising and collective bargaining. Accordingly, most of the workers engaged via labour brokers are not unionised.
2. COSATU Demands on Labour Broking
The system of labour broking is completely out of line with the Decent Work Agenda as conceptualised by ILO. Accordingly, COSATU demands the total banning of the system of labour broking for the following reasons:
2.1 Labour brokers do not create jobs but merely act as intermediaries to access jobs that already exist, and which in many cases would have existed previously as permanent full time jobs.
2.2 The replacement of normal jobs through labour broking arrangements or other equally insecure forms of atypical employment effectively displaces and destroys decent jobs, especially taking into account the substitution of insecure contractual relations and downgrading of wage and employment terms.
2.3 Labour broking is tantamount to slavery, as it amounts to the trading of human beings as commodities. Generally the main commercial contract is agreed to between the labour broker and the so-called "client" enterprise, and which sets out the various stipulated labour services to be supplied and the price at which these services are to be supplied, whereas the true suppliers of the labour (namely the workers) are excluded from this process, thereby undermining their rights to negotiate the wage and employment terms.
2.4 Historically labour broking was banned in many jurisdictions. The lifting of the ban in international and domestic laws of many countries is rather more a reflection of how rampant free-market capitalist principles now enjoy an illusory veil of legitimacy and have even gained ground over those principles relating to human dignity and decency in response to the pressures emanating from a globalised context.
2.5 Apart from undermining collective bargaining rights, labour brokers are also often called upon to provide scab labour as substitute workers for those on strike, with aim of undermining the rights to embark on industrial action.
2.6 Labour broking, combined with other forms of atypical work, reflects current trends of the intensification of the rate of exploitation of workers.
2.7 Labour broking amounts to delegation or refusal of the true employer to comply with its obligations. This often results in workers being unable to enforce their rights against any party that may be identified legally as the employer. In other cases where this may be imposed against the labour broker agency, its precarious financial standing, especially in cases of insolvency, renders workers' rights of enforcement as merely notional.
2.8 Significant emphasis is placed on the commercial rationale of using labour brokers to lower costs for clients, which is commonly achieved by reducing wages and excluding employment benefits.
2.9 There are a range of serious long-term and direct socio-economic implications as described above. In relation to the labour market specifically it is important to take note of the progressive de-skilling of workers, especially as a result of the short-term and irregular nature of the contracts associated with labour broking and other forms of atypical labour.
2.10 Increased regulation of the industry will not work because capacity constraints within the DoL to enforce existing legislation and a ban against labour brokers may be administratively simpler than detailed regulation, thereby simplifying enforcement.
On our part, we have released details proposals contained in our New Growth Path for Full Employment and we will be engaging all the social partners in finding lasting solutions to the high levels of unemployment, poverty and inequalities in the country.
In the event there is no solution found on the issue of labour broking and high levels of unemployment, poverty and inequalities, COSATU will have no option but to embark on massive protest actions.
Memorandum accepted on behalf of Government/Business by