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The Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomes Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant’s announcement today that the labour broking industry will be regulated, and not banned.

The Minister announced today that an amended form of proposed changes to the Labour Relations Act and the Basic Conditions of Employment Act had been approved by Cabinet. These Bills will now come to Parliament for consideration. Once they arrive, the DA will scrutinise them in great detail.

We will use the legislative process in Parliament to ensure that important DA proposals with regards to strike violence, labour broking and temporary work are indeed included in the final legislation.

The information currently available suggests that NEDLAC and Cabinet have rejected COSATU’s proposals, in favour of positions in line with DA policy. The most important issues are:

Labour brokers: NEDLAC decided to improve the regulation of labour brokers rather than banning the industry. This supports the DA’s position on this issue. COSATU supports banning the industry and killing the hundreds of thousands of jobs created by it.
Temporary work: The initial drafts included sections banning most forms of temporary and contract work. The Minister today announced that temporary and contract work would only be better regulated.
Essential services: The Minister has said that there will be new provisions that deal with the high levels of unlawful strikes amongst essential service workers. There will also be new provisions that deal with the scope of essential services. This is line with DA proposals to limit the number of unlawful strikes.
Limiting violent strikes: The Minister has said that changes will be made to respond to the high levels of unlawful strikes and the problematic instances of violence and intimidation that often accompany them. This is exactly what the DA has aimed to achieve. We have proposed that unions be held liable for the damage done by their members. We will advocate for a provision in line with that proposal to be included in the bill once it comes to Parliament.

In January 2011, the Department of Labour’s impact assessment of the proposed labour law amendments suggested that if implemented in its original form, the Bills could place 2.13 million jobs in jeopardy. It seems that the Department has taken that assessment into consideration when drafting the latest version of the bills.

The interests of the unemployed must always be placed first when considering our labour legislation. And whilst we do believe that significant changes still need to be made to increase employment in our economy, these latest announcements at least represent a move in the right direction. The Minister of Labour and the rest of the Cabinet have finally stood up to pressure from COSATU.

For too long our government has placed the interests of COSATU above those of the unemployed.

The DA will continue to fight for the interests of the poor and the unemployed. When the labour bills come to Parliament we will ensure that they are as employment-friendly as possible. Only by creating jobs for the millions of unemployed South Africans can we ever hope to overcome poverty and undo the economic legacy of apartheid.