This news aggregator site highlights South African labour news from a wide range of internet and print sources. Each posting has a synopsis of the source article, together with a link or reference to the original. Postings cover the range of labour related matters from industrial relations to generalist human resources.
In our afternoon roundup, see summaries
of our selection of South African labour-
related stories that appeared thus far on
Wednesday, 19 February 2020.
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New bill to give labour minister power to set employment equity targets BL Premium reports that the cabinet has approved and sent to parliament draft legislation that will empower the employment & labour minister to intervene and set transformation targets in the workplace. Until now, the government required only “reasonable progress” on workplace transformation. Thembinkosi Mkhaliphi, chief director of labour relations at the department, advised that the bill would give the minister power to set sector targets that would have to be complied with because transformation had not sufficiently progressed in the 21 years since the enactment of the Employment Equity Act (EEA). The EEA amendment bill of 2020 will empower the minister in consultation with sector stakeholders to introduce sector-specific employment equity targets. The Commission for Employment Equity 2018 report, which was released in August 2019, showed that since the adoption of the EEA little transformation has taken place in the workplace, especially in the middle and upper ranks. “The bill will also reduce the reporting burden on small businesses because if a company employs fewer than 50 people, irrespective of its turnover, it won’t have to report on its employment equity targets. Labour consultant Tony Healy said the amendment was a “good idea” because workplace demographics in 2020 were still “skewed in favour of [the] white male”. But, labour analyst Michael Bagraim described the bill as “ridiculous”, saying it would strangle businesses because employers wanted to employ people who could do the work and not to necessarily meet some transformation targets. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive (paywall access only) Labour department warns company for employing ‘too many black women’ City Press reports a family business in Kempton Park that manufactures luxury Belgian chocolate, has been admonished by the labour department because it employs too many black women and was told to employ more black men. Beyers Chocolates employs more than 400 people, three-quarters of whom are black women. In addition to manufacturing chocolate, the company also packages and manufactures chocolate for airlines, hotels and large retail groups under different trademarks. Many of the women work in the packaging department, where they do delicate work, such as wrapping chocolates and tying ribbons. After a recent inspection by the labour department, the company was told it employed “too many” black women. The department said the number should be reduced to reflect provincial demographics in Gauteng, where only 36.2% of residents are black women. “If we don’t do it, the department is threatening to take us to the labour court,” advised owner Kees Beyers last week. He added that although the department had not openly told him to get rid of some of his female employees, the implication was clear. Some of the women have been employed by Beyers since it started and he said that he would “refuse to dismiss any of my loyal employees.” Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Suzanne Venter at City Press
Metrorail driver stoned by angry KZN commuters GroundUp reports that after a train driver was stoned while on duty, the United National Transport Union (Untu) accused the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) of failing to provide and maintain a safe and healthy work environment for employees. According to a statement released by Untu on Tuesday, Nonhlanhla Dlamini was the driver of a train from Durban to Stanger on Tuesday when commuters asked her to stop. She refused went on to the usual stop at Briardene Station. Furious commuters then surrounded the cabin and started stoning her. Dlamini was hit on the head and ear by stones and had to be treated in hospital for her injuries. “I used to love my job. But it has become so dangerous that I don’t know if I will return home alive to see my children. It is also not the first time this has happened to me. For me and other Prasa employees assault has become a daily occurrence,” Dlamini claimed. Untu spokesperson Sonja Carstens said they routinely warned train crews that commuters often believed that drivers were responsible for train delays. “In this case they wanted her to stop unauthorised in the middle of the route and she cannot do that. That would not only be endangering her life, but that of the commuters, and she would be immediately dismissed,” Carstens pointed out. A Prasa spokesperson confirmed the incident and said the driver had been relieved of her duties to attend the employee assistance programme for counselling. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Mary-Anne Gontsana at <https://www.groundup.org.za/article/metrorail-driver-stoned-angry-commuters/> Eskom suspends Butterworth operations after employees threatened EWN reports that Eskom has suspended operations in Butterworth indefinitely. The power utility said that its employees had been threatened for choosing not to take part in a protest and shutdown of the town. Eskom said that it had taken the decision to suspend services for the safety of its workers. The reason for the protest has not yet been established. Read the original of the short report in the above regard by Lauren Isaacs at EWN
Strike by emergency medical services in Graaff-Reinet ends after four days GroundUp reports that employees of Emergency Medical Services in Graaff-Reinet, who were on strike since last Tuesday, suspended their strike on Friday, even though according to the employees their grievances had not been resolved. The workers have been demanding payment of outstanding bonuses for several years. During their protest action they reported for work, but refused to respond to emergencies. About fifteen workers on Thursday were gathered in a restroom at the dilapidated EMS building in Murray Street. They complained about their working conditions and showed GroundUp their waiting room, where there are no chairs or tables. “We spend most of the time sitting on the floor … The walls of this building are peeling and there are cracks,” observed one employee. A spokesperson for Eastern Cape Health MEC Sindiswa Gomba stated that the striking staff were back at work “after successful negotiations with the department“. But Msuthu Ndlovu, spokesperson for the workers of EMS Port Elizabeth, said: “The grievances were not addressed. We are still owed money by the government. We decided to go back to work after divisions surfaced among workers … We therefore decided to suspend the strike as it was most likely that striking workers would be victimised by the government … We have to sit down and get organised then we (will) decide on the next move.” Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Joseph Chirume at <https://www.groundup.org.za/article/strike-emergency-medical-services-ends-after-four-days/>
Criminal records of 94 Free State community health protesters eventually cleared over three years after convictions set aside GroundUp reports that the criminal records of 94 community health workers and members of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), who were arrested at a night vigil outside the Free State Department of Health in 2014 have reportedly been cleared. The vigil in June 2014 was a protest against the condition of the Free State public healthcare system and the decision by then MEC for Health, Benny Malakoane, to dismiss approximately 3,000 community health workers in the province. The protesters, known as the #BopheloHouse94, were arrested for attending a gathering under the Regulation of Gatherings Act of 1993 and were convicted and sentenced in October 2015. The matter was taken on appeal to the Free State High Court where the court ruled that attending a gathering for which no notice had been given did not constitute a prohibited gathering in terms of the Act. Convictions and sentences were set aside on 17 November 2016. But, according to Section27, though the court had set aside the convictions, the #BopheloHouse94 still had criminal records for over three years. The public interest law centre said: “The #BopheloHouse94 have been sent from pillar to post for the past three years, incurring significant costs, in attempts to have the criminal records removed. It has taken a herculean effort from Section27 and the TAC to ensure that the records are finally cleared.” Legal researcher Tendai Mafuma said the organisation was concerned about the lack of coordination between the courts and SA Police Service Criminal Records Centre. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Zoë Postman at <https://www.groundup.org.za/article/criminal-record-health-protesters-cleared/>
These three internal Anglo candidates could fill the top job at Amplats BL Premium writes that Anglo American is rich with candidates to fill the CEO vacancy that will be left at Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) with the unexpected resignation of Chris Griffith. Asked about his replacement on Monday, Griffith said it would be an internal Anglo appointment, which immediately removed speculation about a number of former high-powered platinum industry executives, including former Lonmin CEO Ben Magara and former Amplats CFO Bongani Nqwababa. A good starting point to refine the search is to look at the members of Anglo’s group management committee. This is a group of 14 experienced people and a ripe source of talent for the Amplats job, with three or four internal candidates understood to have been considered. The highly regarded Duncan Wanblad, a 53-year-old SA mechanical engineer who heads Anglo’s group strategy and business development, must be a front-runner. He was joint acting CEO at Amplats in 2007 before being moved to head Anglo’s copper division a year later. But Wanblad is leading Anglo’s R7bn bid for Sirius Minerals, a UK mine developer building a polyhalite mine in Yorkshire and it is unlikely that he will be pulled off that job. Another strong contender is July Ndlovu, the 54-year-old engineer who is the CEO of Anglo’s coal business in SA, a business that the company will be exiting in the coming years. He was the executive head of processing at Amplats and has worked in senior management roles in metallurgical operations and technical services. Then there is Natascha Viljoen, a SA engineer in her early 50s, who is possibly the strongest of all the candidates. Viljoen comes with a strong track record from her time as the executive heading the processing division at Lonmin. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Allan Seccombe at BusinessLive (paywall access only) Vedanta’s Naidoo calls for increased female representation in mining Mining Weekly reports that Vedanta Zinc International CEO Deshnee Naidoo has called on the SA mining industry to “change the gender narrative” and to engage in conversations about the lack of female representation in the industry. According to recently published statistics by the Minerals Council SA (previously called the Chamber of Mines), of which Naidoo is also a board member, the local mining industry has a female representation of only 12.4%. Delivering a keynote address at the eleventh yearly Women in Mining Conference, in Midrand, on Wednesday, Naidoo stated that the industry was still not seeing the required step change with regard to including more women. She further noted that “unleashing women at their full potential, individually and as a collective, is the single, most untapped resource that [the industry has]”. In line with the findings of the Responsible Mining Index of 2019, Naidoo mentioned that “very few mining companies show evidence of systematically showing that operations address gender issues”, despite companies reporting on initiatives, aims and goals towards increasing female representation. For gender parity to become a commitment that the entire mining industry could agree to, she suggested that companies develop “clear, specific and measurable targets for increasing the number of female employees in an operation”. Vedanta aims to ensure a 30% women representation across the company’s 90,000 global employees, by no later than 2022. Read the full original of the report in the above regard at Mining Weekly Other general posting(s) relating to mining
Consumer inflation quickened to 4.5% in January, but still well within target range BusinessLive reports that consumer inflation rose at a faster pace in January, according to data released by Statistics SA on Tuesday. Annual consumer price inflation (CPI) was 4.5% in January, up from 4.0% in December, buoyed, among other factors, by increases in fuel prices. Despite January’s uptick, at this level, inflation has been at or below the midpoint of the SA Reserve Bank’s target range of between 3% and 6% since December 2018. The Bank expects inflation to average 4.7% this year. The main drivers of the increase, according to Stats SA, included food and non-alcoholic beverages, housing and utilities, as well as transport. Food and non-alcoholic beverages, which makes up about 17% of the CPI basket, increased by 3.7% year on year, contributing 0.6 of a percentage point to the total annual rate. Housing and utilities, which includes owners’ equivalent rental and makes up almost 25% of the inflation basket, increased by 4.7% year on year, and contributed 1.2 percentage points to the increase. The transport component was another key feature increasing by 6.4% year on year. Fuel prices rose 13.7% on an annual basis. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Lynley Donnelly at BusinessLive
Eskom needs urgent cash injection “from somewhere” to avoid debt crisis, new CEO warns Reuters reports that Eskom urgently needs more cash to stabilise its ballooning debt pile with the funds to come from a rise in tariffs or new equity, new CE Andre de Ruyter told MPs on Tuesday. The power utility had a bid for a big electricity tariff increase rejected by a court earlier this month. Eskom's urgent application to the court for a tariff increase involved hiking rates by 16.6% from April 2020 and a further 16.7% from April 2021. "The issue of Eskom debt has to be addressed to make Eskom sustainable," de Ruyter told Parliament's Standing Committee on Public Accounts. The utility has debt of about R450 billion, mostly backed by the government, and is struggling to service the interest on its borrowing due to falling revenues. Its access to capital markets has also been constrained by years of mismanagement. "The money is going to have to come from somewhere. Either it comes from a tariff increase or it comes from an equity injection. It (the debt) doesn't just disappear. In fact it creates a very significant risk to the sovereign," said de Ruyter. In July, the government allocated Eskom R59 billion over two years to service its debt, on top of the 10-year, R230 billion injection it provided months before that. Read the original of the report in the above regard at Mining Weekly GEPF says it will not invest in Eskom purely to save SA and any investment in the utility would have to generate a return BL Premium reports that the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF) will not invest more in Eskom solely for the purposes of saving SA, but would require that the power producer meet its investment criteria in terms of the management of the entity and the provision of a return. This was indicated by the fund’s principal executive officer Abel Sithole in an interview on Wednesday. Sithole was in Parliament to brief the standing committee on finance on the GEPF’s annual report for 2018/2019. The asset manager of the GEPF is the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), which, as of October last year, had assets under management of R1.87-trillion on behalf of the GEPF. Union federation Cosatu has proposed using R250bn of the assets of the GEPF to settle more than half of Eskom’s R450bn debt in return for certain guarantees regarding retrenchments and the restructuring of the utility. Cosatu’s argument is that, given the risk that Eskom poses to the economy and the harmful effects of load-shedding on business, the GEPF should invest money in the utility in the broader interests of the country. However, the proposal has generated a storm of controversy with the Federation of Unions of SA (Fedusa), trade union Solidarity and the DA strongly opposed to it. The GEPF has not been presented with a concrete proposal based on Cosatu’s plan. The GEPF already has about R84bn invested in Eskom bonds and about R500m in bills, which are basically cash. Sithole said the answer to the question of whether the GEPF would consider investing in Eskom was a complicated one, but “the devil will be in the detail.” Read the original of the report in the above regard by Linda Ensor at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
Telkom acting in bad faith in respect of retrenchment consultations, unions claim in urgent court bid Business Report writes that the SA Communication Union (Sacu) and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) have filed an urgent application in the Labour Court to compel Telkom to properly carry out consultations prior to embarking on retrenchments. In their court papers, the unions accused Telkom of unilaterally consulting directly with members of Sacu and CWU on voluntary severance packages (VSPs) and voluntary early retirement packages (VERPs), thus deviating from an agreement that such consultation would be with the unions. Telkom has reorganised its operations which has led to the possibility of large-scale job losses estimated to affect more than 6,000 employees, according to the Federation of Unions of SA (Fedusa). The federation accused Telkom of practising “extreme bad faith in negotiations and blatant underhandedness” with organised labour alliance partners during talks held last week aimed at finding alternatives to the retrenchments. Fedusa said through the CCMA-mediated talks it became clear to Sacu and the CWU, among other labour formations, that Telkom’s leadership had no desire to find an alternative to retrenchments, and instead wished to remove staff and further “cannibalise” the company to inflate their bonuses. The Information Communications and Technology Union (ICTU) said management claimed - without showing evidence for their argument - that technological advancement was the reason for customer and revenue decline. The union called for the board to be disbanded. Telkom has disputed the unions’ allegations. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Sizwe Dlamini at Business Report
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