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The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SACCI) yesterday submitted its comments on the Labour Bills, published in December, to the Department of Labour. In its comments SACCI said that:

1. It is concerned that the drafters of the Bills appear to have ignored a regulatory impact assessment commissioned by the Department of Labour that indicated that there are serious shortcomings in the four Bills.

2. The Bills effectively ban labour brokers, which is in contravention of the International Labour Organisation Convention 181 to which South Africa is a signatory.

3. The Bills also fly in the face of common international practices that provide flexibility to employers that enable them to remain globally competitive.

4. There will be considerable negative impacts on business should the Bills be promulgated such as:
a. Increased wage and administrative costs.
b. Employees will have to receive equal pay for equal work or work of equal value irrespective of period of service, experience or expertise, productivity or performance.
c. All vacancies will have to be reported to a yet to be established public employment services structure with extremely punitive measure to be applied for failure to do so.

5. These negative impacts on business will translate into
a. Increased costs that will be passed onto consumers with a knock-on negative impact on inflation.
b. Increased costs will also have a negative impact on the prices of South African exports. South African producers will lose competitiveness in global markets.
c. Foreign direct investors will be discouraged from investing in South Africa.

6. Business would probably react by reducing employment, increasing mechanisation of their operations, moving their operations off-shore or closing down.

7. The Bills incorporate issues that are contrary to common law principles such as employers being regarded as guilty of contraventions and having to prove innocence rather being innocent until proved guilty.

SACCI feels that current legislation accommodates all the problems that the Bills aim to address but that appropriate enforcement is lacking. For this reason SACCI believes that the Bills should be withdrawn.