Today's Labour News

GroundUp writes that workers are going to suffer the most from the overwhelming caseloads at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) over the next few years, especially now that part-time commissioners are no longer being used to resolve disputes.  

“When a worker is up against an employer representative, and you have a commissioner who tries to settle the matter as quickly as possible, in general the worker is going to be settling lower than what they should be settling for,” Lynford Dor, spokesperson of The Casual Workers Advice Office (CWAO), observed.  Since 1 December 2020, the CCMA has stopped the use of part-time commissioners and has been functioning with full-time commissioners only.  This comes after a budget cut at the CCMA of about R617 million.  According to the statutory organisation’s most recent performance plan, at that time there were 173 full-time commissioners and an estimated 565 part-time commissioners.  CCMA director, Cameron Morajane, commented that despite the budget reductions, the CCMA continued to operate using only full-time commissioners.  He added that the impact of the budget cut would be that it might take longer to finalise arbitration cases.  In Dor’s view, the effects of laying off the commissioners won’t be seen immediately:  “We will see it over the next year when workers have to wait to have their cases heard. It will be clear in six months to a year how serious that decision was.”  Dale Fish of the Independent Commercial Hospitality and Allied Workers Union (ICHAWU) is also concerned by the increasing backlog of CCMA cases:  “It’s a disaster. Employers are going to take advantage of it, knowing that if they dismiss employees, it’s only going to be heard at the CCMA in a year’s time.”

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Liezl Human at GroundUp

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