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 Thursday morning roundup, see
summaries of our selection of recent South African
labour-related reports.
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Mask-wearing stays as government announces limited Covid-19 regulations just an hour before current ones expired News24 reports that the Department of Health (DOH) announced limited new Covid-19 regulations just an hour before the remaining limited restrictions were due to expire at midnight last night. In terms of the regulations, which take effect from Thursday, the public will still be required to wear a face mask when entering and being inside an indoor public place. However, this does not apply to children at school. "Again, under these limited regulations, no person may use any form of public transport unless wearing a face mask," the DOH announced in a statement on Wednesday evening. For any indoor and outdoor gatherings, a maximum of 50% of a venue's capacity may be occupied provided attendees are vaccinated against Covid-19 and produce a valid vaccination certificate. "Alternatively, attendees must produce a valid negative Covid-19 test result not older than 72 hours prior to the date of the gathering. If complying with this indoor gathering requirement is not possible, then attendance shall be limited to 1,000 people or 50% of the capacity, whichever is smaller, while the attendance at an outdoor gathering shall be limited to 2,000 people or 50% of the capacity, whichever is smaller," the DOH indicated. The previous remaining Covid-19 restrictions, initially imposed under the national state of disaster, expired at midnight. The Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla has extended the period for public comments on health regulations intended to replace the regulations which were in place under the state of disaster by three months to 5 July. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Marvin Charles at News24. Read too, Mask-wearing rule stays as health department gazettes limited Covid-19 regulations, at The Citizen Western Cape High Court dismisses challenge to draft health regulations EWN reports that the Western Cape High Court has dismissed an application challenging the controversial new draft health regulations for managing Covid-19. The draft regulations were published in March and are aimed at helping government manage the pandemic going forward now that the national state of disaster has come to an end. They have however courted significant controversy, with many concerned about the impact on their constitutional rights. Last month lobby group Action 4 Freedom lodged an urgent application to have the consultation process relating to the regulations declared invalid. That application has now been dismissed. In court, Action 4 Freedom’s opposition was centred on the fact that the public was only given 30 days to comment on the draft regulations, with the organisation arguing that it should have been given three months. But Judge Hayley Slingers in her ruling handed down late last week emphasised that the National Health Act went so far as providing for no consultation in some instances and found that the time frame was flexible. She also cited case law to the effect that a party seeking the court’s intervention in legislative processes had to show exceptional circumstances, which she found Action 4 Freedom had not done. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Bernadette Wicks at EWN Other internet posting(s) in this news category
Post Office security guard killed by two men dressed in police uniform during attempted robbery in East London on Tuesday IOL reports that on Tuesday a 45-year-old security guard was shot dead, allegedly by two men dressed in police uniform. Eastern Cape provincial police spokesperson Brigadier Tembinkosi Kinana said that on Tuesday morning at around 10am two men wearing police uniforms entered a Post Office in Gonubie, East London. “It is further alleged that the men attempted to have access beyond the security gate, but a security guard on site refused them access. This is when he was fatally shot. The suspects managed to steal the security guard’s firearm before fleeing the scene in a blue Suzuki Expresso. Moments later, the getaway vehicle was recovered abandoned in Sandy Springs and a plastic bag containing police uniform was also seized,” Kinana indicated. Read the original of the short report in the above regard by Jolene Marriah-Maharaj at IOL City Power technician certain that Chicco Twala’s gun was not a toy SowetanLive reports that one of the five City Power technicians who were allegedly attacked by music producer Chicco Twala claims that the weapon he threatened them with was a real gun and not a toy. The technician also disputed Twala’s claims that he mistook them for cable thieves, asserting that they were dressed in overalls and drove a clearly marked City Power vehicle when Twala attacked them on Sunday night. The six technicians were attending to a reported power fault and Twala allegedly refused them access to the power box outside his yard. The technician claimed that Twala assaulted one of his colleagues and pointed a gun at the rest of the team. Twala has, however, insisted that he used a toy gun to scare off the technicians, whom he mistook for cable thieves. Standing just 2m away from the scuffle between Twala and his colleague, the technician said as soon as the musician cocked his gun, he froze and could not run away. Twala is said to have slapped the technician, choking and pinning him to the ground. “He is a liar. That was not a toy gun. I know the sound of a gun and that was a real one, there’s no two-ways about it. It was so loud, I can still hear it,” said the technician. He said he and other technicians ran away on seeing the gun. Twala appeared in the Randburg Magistrate's Court on Tuesday on charges of common assault and pointing a firearm. He was released on R2,000 bail and is expected back in court in August. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Amanda Maliba at SowetanLive Other internet posting(s) in this news category
‘Overwhelmed’ Young Nurses Indaba Trade Union members march to health department over poor work conditions GroundUp reports that nurses and workers affiliated to the Young Nurses Indaba Trade Union marched to the national offices of the Department of Health and the Treasury in Pretoria on Wednesday. They said they wanted better working conditions as well as permanent employment for nurses hired during the Covid pandemic. Noni Ledwaba, a nursing sister at the Steve Biko Academic Hospital, indicated: “We want the health department to provide extra hands for us. They must employ more nurses. We are overwhelmed. During the pandemic some operations were stopped and now they are continuing and there is a strenuous backlog,” she said. Ledwaba said resources were so stretched at the hospital that patients often had to sleep on beds without any linen and that there were no bandages or sutures. In their memorandum of demands, the nurses demanded that the department’s budget be increased and that workers hired during the pandemic be employed. They also called for the permanent employment of community service nurses and demanded that the department should fund the further education and training of registered nurses. The Department of Health’s Maile Ngake accepted the marchers’ memo and promised that the Health Minister’s office would respond within seven days. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Chris Gilili at GroundUp
Sibanye-Stillwater workers vow on Wednesday to continue striking until their demands are met AFP reports that tens of thousands of mineworkers at the gold operations of precious metals producer Sibanye-Stillwater vowed on Wednesday to push ahead with their wage demands during a strike that began nearly two months ago. The workers are demanding an increase of R1,000 per month, while their employer is only offering a rise of R850, saying anything more would have a substantial knock-on effect on the profitability of the company. The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), representing almost 30,000 workers, declared a strike on 9 March after wage talks failed. Since then, workers have been locked out from the mines and not paid, collectively losing more than a billion rand in wages. Amcu’s general secretary Jeff Mphahlele said workers would continue the strike until their demands were met. “It is the workers who are in control, they tell us how they want to continue,” he told AFP, adding that the employer had “displayed arrogance”. When asked what the way forward was, Mphahlele replied: “For now they (workers) are saying we are sticking with the R1,000.” Sibanye-Stillwater spokesperson James Wellsted said the unions had been “very rigid” during the negotiations with the company. Further meetings are expected on Thursday between the unions and Sibanye management. Read the full original of the report in the above regard at The Citizen Shuttered AngloGold Covid-19 field hospital, on which R499m was spent, targeted by thieves TimesLive reports that in the latest saga to hit the embattled AngloGold Ashanti Covid-19 field hospital, a suspect has been caught with stolen equipment after the hospital was broken into. During the height of the pandemic the West Rand hospital was set to become a facility for the hundreds of Covid-19 patients overflowing from hospitals in Gauteng. A budget of R50m to convert it into a high-care facility soon ballooned to R588m, of which R499m was spent, prompting an investigation by the Special Investigating Unit. In April, the Gauteng health department announced the facility was closed on 31 March and that it was being dismantled after its decommissioning. Spokesperson Kwara Kekana advised that all movable assets were being removed from the Carletonville facility. On Wednesday, the department reported that a suspect was in police custody after being caught “red-handed” with stolen equipment by security personnel outside the decommissioned hospital. The suspect was caught red-handed while loading a bakkie with stolen property outside the hospital premises while the other two fled. The culprits are said to have forcibly gained entry to the hospital where they allegedly stole copper cables, gas stoves, monitors, mattresses and vandalised two state-of-the-art digital X-ray machines. A search for two other accomplices is under way and a case has been opened at the Carletonville police station. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Alex Patrick at BusinessLive
Ratings agency Moody’s expects consumer inflation in SA to hit 8% in 2022 Reuters reports that consumer inflation in SA is set to rise to 8% this year, thereby overshooting the central bank’s target amid the global impact of the Ukraine conflict and rising US interest rates. This was forecast by credit rating agency Moody in a report on Wednesday. Moody’s said inflation was set to be higher than the SA Reserve Bank’s 3-6% target range this year, before falling in 2023 and 2024, with the central bank likely to continue to tighten monetary policy after it raised interest rates in March. Moody’s cited risks to the country’s economy from highly indebted state-owned companies such as power utility Eskom, a rigid labour market and high social spending. “The electricity sector poses the greatest risks to economic growth prospects, with generation capacity already insufficient to cover the economy’s needs,” Moody’s indicated in the report. Power outages implemented by Eskom have constrained economic growth in Africa’s most industrialised country for more than a decade. Moody’s upgraded SA’s outlook from “negative” to “stable” in April, keeping the government’s Ba2 rating and stating that high commodity prices and fiscal consolidation would help to stabilise debt at around 80% of GDP in the medium term. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Rachel Savage at Moneyweb
State has no plans to privatise Transnet, Pravin Gordhan tells MPs BusinessLive reports that Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has denied that the government wants to privatise the country’s rail network. Speaking in the National Assembly on Wednesday, Gordhan denied the government was going the privatisation route. He was responding to questions by EFF MP Omphile Maotwe, who accused the ANC government of collapsing state-owned enterprises such as Transnet in order to sell them to private owners. This related to an announcement by President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2021, as part of the economic recovery plan, to allow private freight rail operators to operate alongside Transnet. Gordhan said Transnet was conducting a phased project regarding the sale of lots to enable private access to sections of the rail network. “In the case of slot sales, the phased project is limited to the sale of operation access privileges in the form of slots with no impact on rail network ownership. Transnet Freight Rail will continue to be the owner and the network manager in addition to being the dominant operator,” said Gordhan. He stated that in all cases of private sector participation, Transnet would retain the ownership of its assets. Gordhan added that all that was being experimented with was how the government and the private sector could co-operate and that the government needed to attract investment that would ultimately create jobs. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Aphiwe Deklerk at BusinessLive Other internet posting(s) in this news category
ER24 warns that social posts offering applications for learnerships at low-cost are fake TimesLive reports that private emergency medical care provider ER24 said on Tuesday it was aware of several fake posts on social media claiming that it was offering free paramedic learnerships and interviews at a low price for applicants. “The modus operandi of such scams often includes the solicitation of money through informal channels such as money market counters to cellular telephone numbers as part of the application or training process,” ER24 said in a statement. ER24 said it would never require a job applicant to make a payment as part of the application process. It advised that common points that might indicate that an advertised post was a scam included: a request for upfront payment or banking details as part of the employment application; the only contact numbers being cellphone numbers as landlines were “out of order”; a lack of interview as part of the employment application process; and legitimate-sounding names that resembled the company name, such as er24 or er 24. Read the original of the short report in the above regard at TimesLive
Experts call for curbing of powers proposed to be held by Health Minister in NHI The Star reports that a call has been made for the clipping of the powers of the Minister of Health in the anticipated National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme. Five experts in the fields of health, law and economics have urged Parliament’s portfolio committee on health to amend the National Health Insurance Bill and limit the minister’s powers in the operations of the NHI. In the pipeline for more than a decade, the NHI is a health funding system that will allow even the poorest to access private health institutions. “The central concern of respondents commenting on the role of the Minister of Health was that the Bill vests too much power in the Minister of Health,” wrote the five experts in a recently published article. They pointed out that the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), among other organisations, was concerned that the NHI’s proposed governance structure concentrated power in the minister. According to the SAHRC submission, the structure did this by making the board accountable to the Minister of Health and giving the minister powers to appoint and remove members of the board or dissolve the entire board. The five experts pointed out that the Board of Healthcare Funders (BHF) was concerned that “the Bill gives the minister the power to potentially veto every significant decision that the board can make”. Stellenbosch University raised the concern that the “extensive powers” assigned to the Health Minister in the Bill might undermine the effective operation of the National Health Insurance Fund. Given the scale of the NHI reforms, the approach taken by the portfolio committee on health in responding to the legitimate concerns raised would have a profound impact not only on the future health system but also on the broader trajectory of social, societal and economic well being, the experts pointed out. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Bongani Nkosi at The Star
Fikile Mbalula says railway services on Cape Town’s Central Line will soon be up and running IOL reports that Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula has advised that people who have built shacks on railway lines in Cape Town will soon be relocated after a piece of land was found for their resettlement. The presence of the shacks has led to the disruption of the railway services on the Central Line in the Cape metro and other major routes. Mbalula, who was part of Ministers in the Economics cluster answering questions in the National Assembly on Wednesday, said they were working tirelessly to return trains full-time to the rail tracks in the Western Cape. He advised that he was going to meet with the Minister of Human Settlements on Thursday to finalise preparations for the land that would be given to people who would be resettled. “As we are speaking now, we are working with the government of the Western Cape, the Cape Town Municipality, Human Settlements and the Department of Public Works. The Department of Human Settlements has secured a piece of land, where we will be moving the people to comply with the court order,” Mbalula said with reference to the High Court order that people who had built shacks on the railway must be moved and the government must find land for them to relocate to. Mbalula said they were working hard to ensure the Central Line was opened to allow for the smooth running of trains. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Siyabonga Mkhwanazi at IOL
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