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The Federation of Unions of South Africa (Fedusa) calls on President Zuma to use his 2017 State of the Nation (SONA) on Thursday evening to underscore the need for stronger collaboration between the government, business and labour as a precondition for achieving higher inclusive economic growth for our country and creating thousands of jobs for the unemployed among us, especially the youth.
FEDUSA believes that as social partners, the leaders of government, business and labour should work towards promoting and strengthening tolerance and understanding between their respective constituencies.

Moreover, it is the collective responsibility of these leaders, to implement without any further delays, shared economic growth strategies that have been agreed between them at NEDLAC, often after long and complex negotiations, in order to address the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality that the country faces. Broadly, our government needs to ensure policy certainty and clarity, and a regulatory environment that does not make it cumbersome for companies to make profits, create jobs and hire new people. For its part businesses should work tirelessly to raise capital for investments from domestic markets, to drive higher inclusive growth and employment creation.
Labour leaders need to understand the importance of creating a stable and harmonious industrial relations environment by embracing the balloting of members before embarking on strikes, ensuring that their members adhere to picketing rules, and do not resort to violence and damage of property during strikes.

Workers also need to link their wage demands to inflation increases and productivity improvements. After more than 20 years of democracy, FEDUSA believes that economic opportunities in our country should not continue be enjoyed by a few privileged families and individuals but rather that it is time that government moves with speed to remove structural impediments that constrain the broader participation of black companies and communities in the economy. Specifically, the business models of most, even not all lucrative food and retail fuel franchises in South Africa today are highly monopolistic and have put up stiff and rigid barriers to entry by black companies and individuals in the form of prohibitive unencumbered cash requirements, demands of track records spanning many years, in addition to heavy shopping mall rentals of more than R30 000 a month.

Needless to say, shopping malls and petrol stations across the length and breadth our country are concentrated in the hands of a few well-known brands, most of them owned by multi-national companies. It is therefore imperative for the Competition Commission to utilise and implement its mandate to prevent this restrictive practice and abuse of dominance in the franchises and shopping malls to undermine small and medium businesses (SMMEs). SMMEs are seen as the drivers of job creation and platforms for emerging entrepreneurs to partake in the economy.

FEDUSA and the rest of the labour movement welcome the National Minimum Wage (NWM) that will be announced by President Zuma in SONA 2017, however if there are no proper and clear enforcement measures in place, disreputable employers could simply ignore it, thus denying millions of workers the opportunity to earn decent wages and undermining confidence in the NMW itself at the same time.

An effective monitoring and enforcement system is therefore vital for the success of the proposed NMW in South Africa and Labour proposes the following measures to enforce compliance: The state should use companies information kept at the South African Revenue Services (SARS), UIF and the SETA to compile a national database of businesses that have to pay the NMW by sector and number of employees.

Second, it should be a requirement for companies to declare their compliance with the NMW to SARS as part of their UIF and/or Skills Development Levy submissions and payments. Third, the state should prescribe compulsory inspections by the Department of Labour when companies apply for exemptions, compliance certificates and when compliance complaints are lodged against by trade unions.

To bolster these monitoring mechanisms, the government should also introduce a hotline or online system for anonymously reporting non-compliant businesses to ensure vulnerable workers are not targeted by their employers, as in the case in countries like Costa Rica and the United Kingdom.

Issued by FEDUSA