Madam Speaker,
Honourable Members of Parliament,
Fellow South Africans,
Ladies and Gentlemen.
“Labour is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only
the fruit of labour, and could never have existed if labour had not
first existed. Labour is superior to capital, and deserves much the
higher consideration”, the sixteenth President of the United States of
America – Abraham Lincoln said these wise words decades ago. Karl Marx
said the same thing, put differently, when he said, “Capital is dead
labour, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour, and
lives the more, the more labour it sucks”.
Madame Speaker, allow me to dedicate this speech to the workers of
this country. Nelson Mandela called on all of us – in his first State
of the Nation Address as President of South Africa – “to regard labour
as a resource and not a cost”. We cannot claim to be heeding this call
when nine of our workers, eight of whom were contract workers, lost
their lives at South Deep Mine on May day when the rope on their
conveyance snapped – plunging them 58 meters down a mine shaft. Madam
Speaker, allow me to request honourable members to observe a minute
silence in their honour.
S E.K. Mqhayi
“Thuthuzelekani ngoko zinkedama; Kuf’omnye kakade, mini
kwakhiw’omnye; Kukhonza mnye kade, ze kuphil’abanye. Ngala mazwi sithi,
thuthuzelekani; ngokwenjenje kwethu sithi; yakhekani. Lithabatheni
eli qhalo labadala: kuba bathi, “Akuhlanga lungehlanga!”
Adlule athi okaMqhanyi
“Awu! Zaf’iint’ezinkulu zeAfrika! Isindiwe le nqanawa de yazika,
Kwaf’amakhalipha, amafanankosi, Agazi lithetha kwiNkosi yeenkosi. Ukufa
kwawo kunomvuzo nomvuka. Ndinga ndingema nawo ngomhla wokuvuka,
Ndingqambe njengomnye osebenzileyo. Ndikhanye njengomso oqaqambileyo.
Makube Njalo”
Kudlule iminyaka eli – 14 sixhamla inkululeko kodwa abasebenzi
basafa kabuhlungu emisebenzini. Umbuzo ngokowokuba bebefuna ntoni na,
aba basebenzi kumgodi ngommhla weholide naholide eyabasebenzi umhla
woku – 1 kaMay. Ingaba abakwa – Goldfields sebephelelwe bubuntu
kusinina? Kutheni ukuze intambo iqhawuke? Noko makhe sime sithi xha
sikhe sijonge siqwalasele undonakele.
Kufikelele ithuba lokuba sikhe sizibhence, siphicothe ukuba ngaba
unobangela yintoni na. Eli sebe lezemisebenzi namanye amasebe ka
Rhulumente makhe baqinise ukuthotyelwa komthetho. Abo bawophulayo
bavalelwe kwesimnyama sona isisele.
Ewe satsho sathi siza kuvula amathuba okusebenza. Xa amathuba
okusebenza athe akho mabaphume ke abantu kwintlupheko kodwa
akunjalo kuba iimeko abasebenza phantsi kwazo zimanyumnyezi yaye
zihlasimlisa umzimba. Abasebenzi bayonzakala bayalimala bayafa.
Asingekhe ke imisebenzi enjalo siyibone njengephucula impilo yoluntu.
Eli lizwe asingekhe silakhe phezu kwezidumbu zabasebenzi. Abo bacinga
ukuba eli lizwe lingaze lifumane uzinzo nenzolo phantsi kweemeko
ezinje, bayaphupha. Siyanzeleka ukuba sinyanzelise ukuvulwa kwezithuba
zokusebenza ezizizo.
On the 19th of October 1998, we promulgated the Employment Equity
Act. Guided by the Constitution of the Republic, in this Act our
purpose is to promote “equal opportunity and fair treatment in
employment” and to implement “affirmative action measures to redress
the disadvantages in employment experienced by designated groups”. Ten
years on, research conducted by the Sociology of Work Programme at Wits
University tells us that, “the hierarchy of the national labour market
is still very much racialised; occupations at the lower-end and lowest
end are almost exclusively filled by black people and African women
respectively, whilst the very top-end occupation has the smallest
proportion of black people and especially African people. Coloured
people are clustered from middle of the range to lower end occupations
whilst Indian people and white people are predominantly located in
middle to high end occupations”. Black people remain at the lowest end
of the labour market hierarchy. Fourteen years into our democracy, why
is this still the case? The common answer to this question is that
there are not enough well qualified black people to employ.
Madam Speaker, we went further and asked researchers at the HSRC to
help us answer this question of the disappearance or non-appearance of
black people who are qualified, in a country were the majority is
black. This disappearing act is simply too startling. We must remember
that according to the Employment Equity Act of 1998, Section 20 (3)
describes how employees may be regarded as suitably qualified for a
job. The Act regards a person as suitably qualified for a job as a
result of any one, or a combination of that person’s -
• formal
qualifications
• prior
learning
•
relevant experience
•
capacity to acquire, within a reasonable time, the ability to do the
job.
Our respected researchers have since come back to us with their
findings on this disappearance of qualified black people in South
Africa. They tell us that their data “shows that there is a growing
pool of designated groups that on the basis of formal post-school
qualifications may be regarded as suitably qualified in terms of the
provision of the EE Act”. They go further and say when looking
nationally at higher education qualifications, “there appeared to be a
concerted effort across all study fields to increase the rate of growth
of Black graduates, and Africans in particular. Very high rates of
growth in the supply of Africans and females (in certain instances)
attest to that transformative imperative”. They then conclude with the
assertion that, “there is very little merit in the assertion that “they
[qualified Blacks and women] were not out there”.
Simply put, Madam Speaker, we have found well qualified black people
in South Africa, they have reappeared. Nonetheless, we went further to
not only focus on formal qualifications, but also looked for qualified
black people based on prior learning, relevant experience, and capacity
to acquire the ability to do the job – as per the Employment Equity Act
criteria. Again, research tells us that “nearly half of the sample
projected showed potential to advance, most of those with potential are
currently placed in semi-skilled positions, and potential to advance is
evident in all population groups, and particularly also in females”.
More black people with potential to advance in the workplace have again
been found. Madam Speaker, we have stopped searching – these are not
the fruits of our labour that we envisioned ten years ago. The carrot
is not working and the stick has to come out.
Therefore Madam Speaker, during this current year, of the total R1.7
billion allocation to labour - R690 million of our allocation to
service delivery is intended to increase the number of inspectors in
all our provinces. We intend to similarly improve the competency levels
of our inspectors for better enforcement of our laws. We will also
focus on substantive compliance through our Director-General Reviews.
This year alone, we intend to double inspections of Johannesburg Stock
Exchange listed companies for substantive compliance with our
employment equity legislation.
On the 2nd of November 1998 – ten years ago – we promulgated the
Skills Development Act. This Act is aimed at developing “the skills of
the South African workforce” through an increase in the “levels of
investment in education and training in the labour market…”. In my last
budget vote, we further undertook to invest more in the acquisition of
artisan and technical skills.
Ten years on, a National Skills Survey conducted by the Human
Sciences Research Council tells us that by 2007:
• “About
eight out of ten South African private sector enterprises provided some
employee training in 2006/07, which is 20 per cent higher than in
2002/03. The margin of improvement for small and medium firms was about
20% while there was 10% improvement for large firms;
• More
than half of all permanent employees in South African workplaces
received some form of training in 2006/07. Training of non-permanent
employees also rose in the period from 19% to 34%;
• The
number of employees who received training in accordance with NQF
standards increased from 9.0 per cent of those receiving training in
2002/03 to 22.1 per cent in 2006/07;
• Across
all enterprises, training expenditure as a percentage of payroll
increased from 2.1 per cent in 2002/03 to 3.0 per cent in 2006/07,
which amounts to a 43% increase;
• The
total number of enterprises claiming grants increased from 41 per cent
in 2002/03 to 55 per cent in 2006/07”.
Simply put, Madam Speaker, we are investing more in the education
and training of our people and training more and more workers in
accordance with NQF standards. Employers are spending two times more
than what the levy system requires of them, and more employers are also
claiming back from the system. These are the fruits of our labour which
give us reason to celebrate.
We however never intended training to be an end in itself. Our aim
is to create what my predecessor referred to as “better employment” in
his budget vote speech of 1996. Better employment can only become a
reality when what Nelson Mandela urged us to do in his maiden State of
the Nation Address of 1994 is achieved, which is to “empower the
workers, raise productivity levels and meet the skills needs of a
modern economy”. We have therefore undertaken an impact study that
allowed us to trace learners that have gone through the skills
development system in the last years to look exactly at all these
matters – better employment, productivity, and relevance of training to
economic needs. What the learnerships impact study conducted by the
HSRC has found is that:
• “Of
all the 18.1 and 18.2 learners, the majority - about two thirds (63%),
were employed after completion or termination of their learnerships.
Slightly over half (53%) of these learners gained employment after
completion or termination of their learnership programmes. 84% of
completed learners were employed within one month or less of completion
of their learnership programmes - 94% of whom employment was related to
the learnership they completed;
• Three
quarters (75%) of these learners are employed in positions that are
full-time and permanent, 9% in positions that are full-time and
contract and 12% on a part-time, contract basis.
• Almost
half (49%) earned between R3 001 and R5 000 per month and almost a
third (30%) between R1 001 and R3 000 per month.
Again, Madam Speaker, for the benefit of some of our friends in this
house – I shall put this simply. In plain English, more than half of
formerly unemployed learners were employed on completion of their
learnership – 94% of whom are employed for what they trained for and
84% of them got employed within a month of completion. These are the
fruits of our labour, for which celebrations are in order.
At the same time, research by Productivity SA points to a 3,2% per
annum increase in private sector productivity since 1996 – largely
spurred by 3.6% labour productivity. The Labour Force Survey also shows
that between September 2001 and September 2007, we have enjoyed
cumulative employment gains in the South African Labour market
totalling 2.1 million jobs. Madam Speaker, allow me to salute our
social partners, our learners who are also workers, and skills
development practitioners for having joined the revolution I called for
ten years ago, and allowing us today to celebrate the wonderful fruits
of our labour.
These fruits that we are enjoying today, however, must spur us to
greater heights. More work remains to be done. In the last year, more
learners were enrolled into learnership programmes – allowing us to
declare today that we are on course towards meeting the targets set by
the second phase of the National Skills Development Strategy by
2010.
However, we still have some SETAs who remain blurred by the
revolution, and our quest to empower our people for better employment.
In the last year, for the first time in the history of the SETA system,
I had to put one of these SETAs – Media Advertising Packaging, Printing
and Production (MAPPP) – under administration. I shall not hesitate,
together with our social partners, to act similarly with any other
SETAs threatening to derail us in developing the skills of South
Africans.
During the current year, of the total R1.7 billion allocation to
labour, R203 million will be dedicated to skills development. In
addition, skills development levy income projected at R7.4 billion over
the medium term will also allow us to train 90 000 unemployed persons,
and increase their placement into jobs from the current achieved rates
of 53% to 70%. This would signify a massive 17% increase. We will also
provide skills development support through the National Skills Fund
(NSF) and Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA) funding to
SMMEs, NGOs and co-operatives. Top-up funding will also be provided to
SETAs, the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) and the
National Research Foundation to assist 26 000 unemployed learners to
enter scarce and critical skills programmes in learnerships,
apprenticeships, internships, bursaries and skills programmes. We
intend to also register an additional 21 000 learner artisans during
the current year as part of our ongoing contribution to the Joint
Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition.
We will further provide funding through partnerships with Umsobomvu
Youth Fund and the Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA) to
support 3 000 youth in new venture creation projects and ensure that
70% of new ventures are sustainable after completion of the programme
through training and mentorship. In the same financial year, we will
also amend the Skills Development Act (1998) to provide for the
functioning of the National Skills Authority in relation to the
National Skills Fund; amendments of SETA functions relating to quality
assurance; establishment of the QCTO; legislating artisan development;
and listing the NSF as a public entity.
On the 1st and 2nd of December 1998, we promulgated the Basic
Conditions of Employment Act and amended the Labour Relations Act
respectively. These two Acts are key to the functioning of the South
African labour market. With the BCEA we intended to regulate various
employment conditions such as working hours, leave, employment
contracts, termination etc. The LRA on the other hand is aimed at
advancing economic development, social justice, labour peace and the
democracy in the workplace.
Ten years on, the Labour Force Survey released in March this year
tells us that of the roughly 13 million South Africans employed:
• Only
7.7 million of them are in permanent jobs;
• 5.8
million workers in South Africa are not registered for unemployment
insurance (UIF) benefits;
• 2.7
million workers are employed without any written contracts;
• 4.1
million workers do not have paid leave entitlement in their places of
work;
• 7.3
million workers do not belong to trade unions; and
• 7.5
million workers have no medical aid benefits provided
Yet, Madam Speaker, we continue to be told about labour market
rigidity. How can our labour market be rigid when halve of our workers
are in casual and temporary jobs, 5.8 million of whom are not covered
by the UIF, 2.7 million of whom do not even have written contracts, and
4.1 million of whom do not even have paid leave entitlements? How can
our labour market be rigid when halve of our workers do not even belong
to a trade union? More sadly, how can we complain about labour market
rigidity when our workers continue to die daily in our workplaces –
last year alone, 332 workers died in their places of work.
Bargaining Councils are also struggling. In the International Review
of the labour market that we have just completed, Professor Guy
Standing advises that, “perhaps it is time for policymakers to consider
what will follow the ongoing shrinkage of bargaining councils”, and
that “there is ample anecdotal evidence of a steady decentralisation of
collective bargaining”. Research conducted by the Development Policy
Research Unit of the University of Cape Town also tells us that
bargaining councils remain “relatively weak and unrepresentative at the
national level”. Yet people continue to complain about centralised
collective agreements that scare investors, it does not tally.
Madam Speaker, if the truth be told, the balancing act that we have
always professed between security and flexibility is getting out of
balance. It is tilting in favour of flexibility. The fruits of our
labour get spoilt when our international reviewer tells us that,
“without much doubt, South Africa’s workers and its working communities
are experiencing increasing insecurity of various kinds”. They get
spoilt when we are told by researchers that workers today increasingly
work longer hours than they did in the past, with lesser pay. According
to the Development Policy Research Unit, between 2000 and 2005, there
has been an increase in the number of hours worked of approximately 1.5
hours, from 47.6 hours in 2000 to 49.1 hours in 2005 – and that females
worked nearly two hours longer in 2005. This is not what our law
intended to achieve.
In the face of all this, our workers have shown resilience. Since
2005, the number of strike incidents has declined from 102 to 75 in
2007. This represents a decrease of more than 25% in 2007. However,
this resilience will not last forever. We are already seeing signs of
worker restlessness. Since 2003 working days lost to strikes increased
from 79 working days lost per 1 000 employees to 753 in 2007. Last
week, municipal workers in Tshwane embarked on strike action demanding
that the municipality should stop using labour brokers. The Sociology
of Work Programme of the University of the Witwatersrand, in their
research report recommends that we should consider, “the outlawing of
labour brokers who merely act as employers of subcontracted labour”.
Maybe this should be the route to follow, because we cannot allow
ourselves to return to the days of the late 80s and early 90s when
adversarialism was the order of the day in the labour market. Such
conflict would not benefit anyone – and this is what investors do not
want to see.
Therefore Madam Speaker, during this current year, of the total R1.7
billion allocation to labour, R441 million of our appropriation to
labour market programmes will endeavour to fund 15 projects - through
the Strengthening of Civil Society Fund - that target vulnerable
workers in rural and remote areas over the next 3 years to access their
rights in terms of labour legislation. Some of the projects targeted
for funding in this regard include the Workers’ College, Ukuthula
Community Advice Office, Overberg Development and Empowerment Centre,
and the Southern Cape Land Committee Trust. We will also improve the
status of vulnerable workers by reviewing working conditions in the
domestic worker, forestry, contract cleaning, farm worker, and private
security sectors. We have also budgeted R5 million for the development
of a business case to restructure our Sheltered Employment Factories –
whose operations have improved remarkably in the last year. But more
importantly, feeding off our research which has guided us with regards
to the development of a Decent Work Index, we intend to develop a
Decent Work Country Programme in collaboration with the International
Labour Organisation (ILO) and in consultation with social partners,
focusing mainly on the creation of better employment. The four pillars
of the Decent Work agenda will be dealt with in the context of related
government reform processes and the department’s constitutional
obligations. As signatories to the ILO conventions on occupational
health and safety, we have also signed an Accord with our social
partners. This Accord will allow us to jointly target specific high
risk sectors for inspection and enforcement. During this year we will
focus on agriculture, food and beverage, iron and steel, and also
construction.
Additional allocations of R48.6 million over the MTEF period have
also been added to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and
Arbitration baseline for the recruitment of commissioners and the
provision of a dispute prevention management and institution building
service. Together with our social partners at NEDLAC, we also need to
begin a comprehensive review of the Growth and Development Summit
agreements and evaluate progress towards achieving its objectives –
which include that bigger fruit of halving unemployment by 2014.
We also cannot rest Madam Speaker until our people enjoy adequate
protection through the Unemployment Insurance Fund. The fact that half
of our workers today are not covered by the UIF is an indictment to all
of us. There is no excuse for employers not to register workers for
UIF. The fund has improved its systems tremendously in the last ten
years –we want to see the fruits of this labour. Our systems are now
fully electronic and automated. They have also been decentralised to
regional and labour centre level, whilst we have simultaneously
increased the number of processing centres. Therefore there can never
be excuses about long queues, delayed payments, or any other service
delivery complaints – workers must simply be registered. In the current
year, we will also review the improvement of benefits as well as
amendments to its legislation.
Madam Speaker, celebrating ten years of the fruits of our labour
with the Compensation Fund does not seem possible at this stage. Our
claims settlement rates at the Fund are too low at only 58%.
Integrating compensation and health and safety competencies across
government has also not been accomplished. In the last year we have had
to also suspend three senior officials at the Compensation Fund on
allegations of fraud and corruption. A lot therefore remains to be done
with regards to the Compensation Fund.
In the current year we intend to intensify administrative
interventions we put in place in the fund in the last financial year,
which we hope will improve and align the business processes in
accordance with all related regulations and the fund’s strategic
objectives. This year we have also begun upgrading the Compensation
Fund’s financial system so as to improve both the claims settlement
rate and the turnaround times. We also intend registering pharmacists,
medical orthotics, and also prosthetics practitioners as designated
providers in the Compensation Fund’s database.
Madam Speaker, as is evident from my inputs in this house today, a
lot has been achieved – but a lot remains to be done. What remains can
only be achieved through joint efforts from all of us. These include
our social partners – business, labour and community – whose presence
with us today gives us hope. I must also acknowledge the Portfolio
Committee on Labour under the Chairpersonship of Mme Rebecca Kasienyane
– ke re Mme wa rona, le ka moso. I also wish to extend my appreciation
to the officials of the Department and the Acting Director-General for
pulling together in pursuit of our common goals.
Madam Speaker, I would like to finally commend the budget of the
Department of Labour to the honourable members of this august
house.
I thank you.
