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IF IT ISN’T BROKEN, DON’T FIX IT
PHOTO: Labour lawyer Johnny Goldberg addressed an information-hungry gatherings convened by the PCA around the country in May. With him here is Mike Bullock, outgoing director of the PCA. Johnny, who was representing CAPES (Confederation of Associations in the Private Employment Sector) feels that employers need to get tougher and not feel embarrassed about being employers. After all, it is employers who are giving people hope, pride and an opportunity in life.
Labour expert urges employers to stand firm
“As employers, you need to stand up and be counted, otherwise you’ll be taken for a ride.”
This was the counsel from Johnny Goldberg, NEDLAC business negotiator on A-typical employment, in his address to members of the plastics industry in Cape Town and Johannesburg in May.
Goldberg discussed the current labour broking situation, in which the trade unions – most notably Cosatu and Sactu, spurred on by the SACP – are calling for a ban on brokering.
In Goldberg’s words, labour broking lies at the heart of flexibility, and of course in business, flexibility is key. Think for instance of variables like the fluctuating rand and unforeseen events like a volcano blowing its top – these things influence demand, which of course has bearing on the size of workforce you require.
Recently there has been increasing agitation from the left to do away with brokering, but as Goldberg reminded his audience, our constitution makes provision for brokers. He referred to the comparable situation in Namibia, where the practice was indeed banned last year, only to have the ruling reversed by the Namibian constitutional court some months later.
Goldberg, who has the interests of business at heart, also believes that what is best for business is really in the best interest of the economy at large. Doing away with labour brokers, he asserts, will have dire social consequences. Most notably, this will be in the form of lost jobs, and this at a time when unemployment and concomitant despondency has reached all-time highs – or lows, as the situation might more aptly be viewed.
“Today, at an educated guess, I’d say a million people went to work under labour brokerage,” Goldberg said. “And our research indicates that fewer than 30% of those people would be employed permanently [in the absence of brokerage].” This suggests that in the case of labour brokerage being dismantled, 700 000 people would find themselves unemployed – a tremendous blow to the country.
The result of a ban on brokering with related job loss: increased imports, given that sourcing from abroad would be cheaper than employing an unbrokered workforce.
Returning to his point of one million lost jobs, Goldberg conceded that of the million, up to 300 000 could be illegal (sourced by the so-called “bakkie brigade”; unregulated). “I don’t stand for that either – it needs to be sorted out – but who needs to sort that out? Government!” And this, he maintains, is just one of the areas where the Department of Labour is letting the country down: inspectors from the department are absent or incompetent, which leaves business to bear the brunt.
Discussing the way forward, Goldberg said that while things are still unclear, Nedlac and the trade unions are poised for negotiations. “And that, for a change, is what we need. The time is over for trade unions telling us what to do. What we need is for them to approach us with proposals, and then we can go from there.”
In the mean time, his advice is to stay strong and not give in to strikes or unreasonable demands.
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