South Africa’s proposed amendments to its labour laws lacked clarity and definition and were likely to attract material criticism from both business and trade unions at public hearings next week, commercial and labour law experts said on Friday.

The amendments, as was proposed by the Minister of Labour Mildred Oliphant in December, related to the Labour Relations Act, the Basic Conditions of Employment Act and the Employment Equity Act. In addition, the Employment Services Bill had been introduced, which, should it be enacted, would extensively regulate the labour broker industry and those making use of brokers.

Werksmans employment law director Anastasia Vatalidis said that, while the country’s labour laws arguably required amending, the proposals had a number of gaps and lacked definition.

One of the concerns included the amended definitions of the terms ‘employee’ and ‘employer’, which could lead to misinterpretations and unintended consequences.

Vatalidis argued that any direct ban on temporary employment services could probably also be constitutionally challenged, as was recently shown in neighbouring Namibia. But she added that an indirect ban could still be achieved by making the practice unattractive.

An additional burden on employers, pointed out by Werksman director Bradley Workman-Davies, was an amendment calling for workers on fixed contracts (or temporary employees), to receive the same benefits as permanent employees. “This could include things such as cellphone allowances, medical aid and pension funds.”

Vatalidis emphasised that if the legislation was implemented in its current form, it could cause increased job losses and unemployment, significantly raise the administrative burdens of employers and employees and could accelerate the casualisation of labour.

“I expect that business will be unhappy about the lack of clarity in the proposed amendments, and will make a case for the loss of jobs that could result from the implementation of the proposals.

“At the same time, I suspect that labour will also be unhappy with government not declaring an outright ban on labour broking and the abusive practices that sometimes accompany it. But we will have to wait for February 17, to see what happens.”

On Thursday, Adcorp predicted that the implementation of the proposed amendments could result in more than a million jobs being lost.

Business Leadership South Africa CEO Michael Spicer has also warned that the proposed sweeping changes were not only riddled with “contradiction, ambiguity, paradox and irony”, but could even stop South Africa’s economic recovery and further fuel already rampant and unsustainably high unemployment.

In its response to President Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation address of Thursday, Business Unity South Africa (Busa) said that the possible tightening of constraints on the labour market could “cast a dark shadow over our future employment prospects”.

“Employment-friendly labour legislation is essential to decrease the high level of joblessness that currently prevails,” Busa argued.