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, 22 April 2020.
|
More than 73,000 additional soldiers to be deployed in fight against Covid-19 pandemic BusinessLive reports that as the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic intensifies, President Cyril Ramaphosa is seeking to increase the number of soldiers on SA streets more than twenty five-fold. The president, who is the commander in chief of the armed forces, wrote on Tuesday to parliament's joint standing committee on defence to advise that he was ordering the deployment of an extra 73,000 members of the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) to join the 28,20 soldiers already on the streets. The soldiers have been deployed in terms of the constitution to support the SA Police Service in enforcing the nationwide lockdown. In his letter, Ramaphosa wrote that he had decided to employ “an additional 73,180 members of the SANDF, consisting of the regular force, reserve force and auxiliary force.” He said the deployment would be from 2 April to 26 June 2020. Ramaphosa added that the revised expenditure to be incurred by the deployment of members of the SANDF amounted to R4.5bn. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Claudi Mailovich at BusinessLive Clothing manufacturing workers become the first to be paid out from UIF’s Covid-19 relief fund BusinessLive reports that thousands of workers in the clothing manufacturing industry became the first in SA to receive payouts from the Covid-19 relief fund run by the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF). Marthie Raphael of the National Bargaining Council for the Clothing Manufacturing Industry said the council received its first tranche of worker UIF funds on Friday “which was to compensate workers for loss of wages for the first full day of the lockdown, March 27, and which was the last day of that pay-week in the clothing industry”. She went on to indicate: “On the same day that the funds were received, these worker UIF monies were seamlessly transmitted from the bargaining council’s special dedicated Covid-19 bank account to the wage-bank accounts of 367 companies employing 38,751 employees”. Vilina Membinkosi of the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (Satawu) said they were “very much excited” that their members have been the first in the country to tap into the Covid-19 relief fund.” Meanwhile on Monday, Labour and Employment Minister Thulas Nxesi said the Covid-19 Temporary Employee/Employer Relief Scheme (Ters) had paid a total of R1.1bn to workers in formal employment who had lost their income as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. He reported that the UIF had received 55,268 benefit applications from employers representing about 1.6-million employees. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive Denosa warns government against redeployment of state health workers EWN reports that the Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA (Denosa) has warned that the new regulations giving government powers to redeploy health workers would leave many state health facilities in distress. The regulations, which were published a week ago, give health authorities powers to move personnel from one facility to another, be it in another town or province, depending on where the skills are most needed. Unions have rejected the regulations, saying they were not consulted. Denosa said that given the shortage of nurses in the country, redeploying health workers from one facility to another would not help the situation. The union’s Simon Hlungwani said: "As it were, you'll find that there's only one professional to run a shift in a particular hospital and you find that some wards have 60 beds, so we ask that in a short-staffed situation, you can never red zone in another area. If you remove nurses from that area that's already taking strain, it means you are stopping services." Health Department Director-General Anban Pillay said that they would consider these concerns when implementing the regulations. He also explained that health workers would not be forced to move without looking at whether their circumstances allowed for that. Read the original of the short report in the above regard by Clement Manyathela at EWN Stats SA survey shows that one in five SA businesses have reported staff layoffs Fin24 reports that according to the results of a new Statistics SA business impact survey, one in five SA businesses have laid off staff due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The survey was based on the responses of 707 business across all sectors of the SA economy. While 20% of responding businesses reported layoffs "in the short term", just under a third said they had reduced staff working hours. Some 85% of businesses reported a decrease in turnover, while 75% said they expected the impact of the coronavirus pandemic to be worse than the 2008 global financial crisis. In the wake of the 2008 crisis, SA's GDP fell by 1.5% in 2009 before rebounding by 3% in 2010. The impact of the crisis caused by the coronavirus is predicted to be far more severe, with expectations from the SA Reserve Bank of a 6.1% contraction in the economy this year. Read the full original of the short report in the above regard by Jan Cronje at Fin24 Employment losses due to lockdown ban on alcohol sales could exceed failing SOE job numbers Michael Fridjhon writes that SA is the only country where Covid-19 lockdown regulations include a blanket ban on all liquor sales, and the job losses directly attributable to this action are considerable. The most conservative estimates suggest that they comfortably exceed the total number of jobs which the state has been at pains to preserve through its decades-long refusal to abandon or otherwise dispose of the failing state-owned enterprises (SOEs). While most countries have imposed restrictions on the public consumption of liquor, off-consumption trade for home use has continued, either through retail stores or online trading platforms. Fridjhon argues that it is difficult to discern the logic behind SA’s ban on off-consumption sales. Those wealthy enough to have stored adequate supplies ahead of the lockdown are free to consume alcohol at will, but those in more constrained circumstances are being penalised, and the businesses which supply them are being driven towards bankruptcy. For the wine industry the problem has been compounded by the state’s refusal to allow wine to be exported during the lockdown, which has produced an inevitable attrition among the 40,000 workers employed on grape farms and in wineries. In Fridjhon’s view, allowing off-consumption sales, including for the informal sector, would save a percentage of the jobs at risk. At a most conservative estimate, if every one of the more than 100,000 unlicensed outlets were able to retain a single employee to supply and service the trade, then 100,000 people who are presently unemployed would have work. Read Michael Fridjhon’s article in the above regard in full at BusinessLive (paywall access only) Teachers employed by SGBs face losing salaries if parents don't pay school fees during lockdown The Star reports that if parents don’t pay school fees during the national coronavirus lockdown, thousands of teachers might not receive their salaries. While the salaries of teachers employed by provincial education departments are secure, the thousands of teachers employed by school governing bodies (SGBs) may not receive their salaries in the event of non-payment by parents. Schools and the Education Department have been urging parents to pay their children’s fees despite their being at home for an extended period because of the Covid-19 lockdown. This week, parents of pupils at Melpark Primary School in Joburg received letters urging them to pay fees because teachers employed by the SGB would not be paid if parents failed to do so. The Independent Schools Association of Southern Africa has indicated to parents of children at its member schools that despite the lockdown, fees had to be paid in full. For independent schools, fees are their primary income. Matakanye Matakanye of the National Association of School Governing Bodies commented: “The problem is big, because there are schools that have hired teachers and now parents say they don’t have money. Teachers will not get paid. We have advised schools to apply for (funding from the) UIF.” The government has not yet announced when schools will reopen Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Tebogo Monama at The Star KAP Industrial cuts salaries by 20% for three months due to Covid-19 BusinessLive reports that KAP Industrial, which has automotive, chemicals and logistics businesses, has cut the salaries of some of its employees by 20% for three months to shore up finances during the Covid-19 pandemic. The cuts will affect employees not covered by collective bargaining agreements. They will also not receive an annual inflation increase for the period between the end of July 2020 and the end of June 2021. The group said negotiations have also been initiated through relevant bargaining council and union structures in a bid to postpone for 12 months wage agreements that have not been implemented. Where wage agreements have been implemented, the company is looking to suspend all non-financial benefits for 12 months. The group did not go into details with regards to how many employees the salary reduction would affect, but according to its 2019 annual report, of its 15,249 SA employees, 56% were unionised. KAP said it was taking the measures to avoid the possibility of mass retrenchments Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Karl Gernetzky at BusinessLive. See too, Senior staff at Ina Paarman Foods take pay cuts of up to 50% to avoid job cuts, at TimesLIVE Over 130 police, security and government officials arrested during national lockdown TimesLIVE reports that at least 131 police officers, security members and government officials — specifically councillors — have been arrested for Covid-19-related lockdown crimes over the past month. Police minister Bheki Cele said 89 police officers formed part of the overall figure. Briefing the media during a visit to Durban on Wednesday to assess adherence in the province to the Covid-19 lockdown regulations, Cele indicated that councillors, health officials and department of correctional service members were among the government officials arrested. Among the 89 officers arrested were two sergeants from Katlehong in Gauteng who were arrested after allegedly demanding a R12,000 bribe from a businessman who had contravened the lockdown regulations. Of the other members, he advised as follows: “Some were caught drinking; some for buying and selling liquor; some for corruption and defeating the ends of justice; some for organising gatherings in contravention of the regulations; some even going as far as allegedly staging break-ins in the Western Cape just to go and steal alcohol from closed liquor outlets.” Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Orrin Singh at TimesLIVE. See too, Cele reports that 89 police officers arrested during lockdown, at The Citizen Other internet posting(s) in this news category
Female police officer shot in the head and killed in Vereeniging on Tuesday night The Citizen reports that a female police officer has died after she was shot in the head in Waldrift, Vereeniging, on Tuesday night. Two other members escaped the attack unscathed. At about 7.10pm, the sergeant had just been picked up by two colleagues and they were on their way to report for duty at their station, SAPS Sebokeng. When travelling, they noticed something suspicious happening around a vehicle. It appeared to them that a person was being forced into the boot of the vehicle. The driver reversed to investigate and they were fired upon by the men at the suspicious vehicle. The 40-year-old sergeant was sitting in the back seat of the car when a bullet struck her in the back of her head. The driver immediately drove off to the nearest hospital where the wounded officer died. The national commissioner condemned the attack and tasked the Gauteng provincial commissioner to immediately mobilise the 72-hour Activation Plan in an effort to find those responsible. Read the full original of the report in the above regard at The Citizen Soldier killed on Tuesday by out-of-control truck at N12 roadblock The Citizen reports that a soldier was crushed by a truck on the N12 in Johannesburg while taking part in a routine roadblock on Tuesday morning. The accident happened at a roadblock on the N12 East near Comaro Street during a joint operation undertaken by the SA National Defence Force (SANDF), the Johannesburg metro police and the SA Police Service. The driver of the truck reportedly lost control of the vehicle and it fell over onto the soldier. The SANDF said its military police were currently investigating the circumstances surrounding the accident and more information would be released in due course. The SANDF added that another of its soldiers was killed on Saturday near Acornhoek in Mpumalanga while travelling in a police vehicle which crashed while in pursuit of another vehicle that had failed to stop at a roadblock. Read the original of the short report in the above regard at The Citizen
Amcu changes tack on mining lockdown exemptions BL Premium reports that the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) has backed off the urgency of its court case to force the state to rescind the lockdown exemptions of 129 mines. Instead it has launched a second case to force the regulation of health and safety processes for hundreds of thousands of miners returning to work. Amcu is at the forefront of an organised labour pushback against the relaxing of national lockdown regulations for the mining sector. In the first of two court processes, Amcu argued that the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) had acted outside its powers in allowing the exemptions granted to companies on 8 April. Regulatory developments overtook the case when the DMRE on 16 April unveiled amendments to the regulations, allowing for a return of all mines to 50% of capacity during the lockdown period under strict controls. “Since these amended regulations have now become law, we have urged our members to comply but reminded them of their right to refuse to work in dangerous conditions,” Amcu president Joseph Mathunjwa said on Tuesday. In its second case, Amcu will be seeking a Labour Court order for the DMRE or the chief inspector of mines to issue and gazette binding regulations about the return of mineworkers and how they should be screened, tested, isolated, quarantined and to be kept safe at work with proper protective gear and social distancing. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Allan Seccombe at BusinessLive (paywall access only) Other labour / community posting(s) relating to mining
Unions and state to meet next Tuesday for conciliation talks over public sector salary increases BusinessLive reports that Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) Minister Senzo Mchunu will face off with angry union leaders next Tuesday at a meeting aimed at averting a potential wage strike by about 1.3-million public servants. The meeting, expected to run until 30 April, will be held at the Public Sector Co-ordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC) and comes about two weeks after the government reneged on a multiyear wage agreement signed in 2018. The first batch of public servants, including nurses, pharmacists and lab technicians, received their April salaries on Wednesday last week without the increase agreed on as the last leg of the PSCBC agreement. Finance minister Tito Mboweni announced in his February budget that about R160bn would be cut from the state wage bill over the next three years. Before President Cyril Ramaphosa’s decision to impose a lockdown from 27 March, the government had hoped to renegotiate the third year of the wage agreement and projected a saving of R37.8bn in 2020. While the government did put out a revised offer of a 4.4% pay increase for some levels of workers, unions rejected this and elected to lodge a dispute in the PSCBC. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive
Consumer inflation dips to 4.1% in March, but data only reflects prices before lockdown Fin24 reports that the consumer inflation rate dipped in March, after sustained increases since November 2019 saw the rate reach a 15-month high in February. According to figures released by Statistics SA on Wednesday, the annual consumer price index (CPI) decreased to 4.1% year-on-year in March 2020, from 4.6% in February 2020. Month-on-month inflation, increased by 0.3%. Stats SA collected the CPI data only for the first three weeks in March as the nationwide lockdown brought economic activity to a standstill in many sectors before the end of the month, dramatically restricting what consumers could buy. The inflation rate for food and non-alcoholic beverages was slightly higher than the overall inflation, at 4.2% year-on-year. Categories that saw the biggest price increases in March were housing and utilities (4.8%) and miscellaneous goods and services (6.4%). Researchers have forecast that prices will fall in coming months. Absa has forecast CPI at around 2.6% in the second quarter of 2020. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Londiwe Buthelezi at Fin24
Government not giving up on SAA and wants to work with unions for a ‘new financially stable airline’ BL Premium reports that the government has not given up on saving SA Airways (SAA) and told employees on Tuesday it wanted to work together with them to establish “a new financially viable airline”. This was despite the carrier’s business rescue practitioners having set in motion the structured winding down of the airline because the government would no longer be funding the rescue process. The unions and representatives of non-unionised employees held talks with Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) Minister Pravin Gordhan, Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi and Tourism Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane on Tuesday. After the meeting, the DPE said: “There was consensus that the unions would work with the government to ensure that a new financially viable and competitive airline emerges from the business rescue process; that a consultative forum be established to advance dialogue and consultation on the process ahead; that there will be a sharing of ideas on how best to ensure the wellbeing of employees at this challenging time; and that there must be no dependence on the fiscus.” It added that the unions agreed that finding a solution for SAA would mean some job losses and the staff who remained behind would need to sacrifice some of the present “unaffordable arrangements”. The unions were asked to submit their proposals on the restructuring of the airline and the future of jobs going forward. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Genevieve Quintal at BusinessLive (paywall access only). See too, South Africa aiming for new viable airline from SAA business rescue, at Moneyweb
|
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page