​​Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi said employers who are still exploiting workers and not respecting the labour laws will soon face the full might of the law in order to ensure full compliance.

The Minister was addressing a breakfast stakeholder session held at the East London Golf Club on Friday (06 March 2020). The minister is in the Eastern Cape with his Deputy Minister Boitumelo Moloi and senior management, to assist the province in dealing with economic transformation and employment prospects in the Buffalo City and Chris Hani District municipality.

Nxesi said he was very concerned particularly on the security companies, the farming sector and the hospitality industry, which are still exploiting workers and hiring undocumented foreign nationals.

“I must caution that we are going to come very hard on security companies. Regardless of colour, who owns them, even people who claim to be comrades, we just can't allow people to exploit the workers, reiterated Nxesi.

He said the department was readying itself to conduct blitz inspections all over the country in order to ensure that employers are complying with the law. Nxesi said it baffles him how some employers are still practising the hiring of undocumented foreign nationals while the country is facing such a high unemployment rate.

On employment creation and retention, Nxesi said since his appointment, a lot of thought has been given on how to reconfigure the Department of Labour to focus on the employment creation and retention, and not just regulation.

“The issue which is troubling us in the main is job creation, employment and retaining massive retrenchments," said Nxesi.

He said this is the time where partnership with the private sector and communities was very critical to come up with projects and programmes that will ensure employment.

Nxesi said the Unemployment Insurance Fund - an entity to the department has set aside money for various training programmes. However, he said gone is the time where people apply for millions in the name of training young people and leaving them in limbo three months after the programme completes.

“We want training programmes where we are going to approve its content. Training that is linked to an employer. Not training for the sake of training. Millions have been abused and now, we are trying to invest in quality training. We want meaningful programmes which are going to link people to work and develop future employers, said Nxesi.

The minister also took time to showcase the newly launched National Minimum Wage Impimpa hotline saying, particularly this hotline was focusing on domestic workers who are the most vulnerable and exploited to work for little money.

He said workers said workers who are not paid the national minimum wage can now dial the free Impimpa hotline on *134*305# to lodge a case.

“We know that the current national minimum wage is not a living wage but, it has already improved the conditions of the millions of workers and, it establishes the principle of the legal minimum wage upon which we can build when the economy improves. We understand that as a country we are under a very difficult time, said Nxesi.

Today the minster and the deputy minister will be running parallel programmes focusing on the Chris Hani District where three farms will be visited to check compliance with labour legislation.

The minister will thereafter stop at a hospice to handover Assistive Device (Motorised and Manual wheelchairs), while the deputy minister visits the home of Compensation Fund beneficiaries who were injured on duty, to handover assistive devices (prosthesis and wheel chairs), and later join officials at Cofimvaba to engage with clients.

Running concurrently with the farm visits will be “Taking Services to the People" campaign at Cofimvaba Senior Secondary School, where the department will be rendering its full suite of services on the spot, in collaboration with other sister departments/entities/organisations.

Nxesi said this campaign is meant to reach people in the far flung rural areas where it is difficult to reach labour centres.

He encouraged community members to come in their numbers to receive the full suite of the departments' services.

For enquiries contact:

Teboho Thejane

Departmental Spokesperson

082 697 0694

Teboho.thejane@labour.gov.za

-ENDS-

Issued by: Department of Employment and Labour

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