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Mail & Guardian reports that the caseload of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) has increased 14.36% in the last year, but the money it gets from the government has increased by only 1.32%.
It also has 17% fewer commissioners than it did in 2013, when it was dealing with only 70% of its current caseload. Moreover, the CCMA will have its budget cut by R600-million over the next three years. This will happen amid a wave of job losses that are expected to occur as a result of the economic downturn triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic. As CCMA director Cameron Morajane put it, “there is no sugarcoating the effect more budget cuts will have on the statutory body mandated with saving jobs.” On top of a more significant retrenchment caseload, the commission has already been dealing with far more cases than it did at the start of 2019, when it was also mandated to tackle national minimum wage cases. Morajane explained that although the commission understood that cuts to government budgets were necessary, “services will be affected severely if such a cut continues”. He indicated that the commission has taken the decision not to employ more full-time commissioners. Between December 2020 and March 2021, the CCMA will also not be using part-time commissioners, which the commission had previously leaned on to help deal with its mounting caseload. But, Morajane also said that, despite its decreased resources, the commission would endeavour to make the most of what it did have and that “we are finding ways to do more with those limited resources.”
- Read the full original of the informative report in the above regard by Sarah Smit at Mail & Guardian
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page