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 roundup of weekend news, see
summaries of our selection of South African
labour-related stories that appeared since
Friday, 22 July 2022.
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Labour Court nullifies mass Numsa suspensions and interdicts congress BusinessLive reports that the Labour Court in Johannesburg has nullified the mass suspension of dissenting National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) office bearers as well as the placing under administration of the union’s largest region, Mpumalanga, by the central committee. The ruling by Judge Graham Moshoana on Saturday also interdicted and restrained Numsa from holding its national congress, which was set to start on Monday, until it had complied with the ruling. Moshoana ruled that the moves were “invalid”, “unconstitutional” and “unenforceable in law”. Numsa’s second deputy president and newly elected president of the SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu), Ruth Ntlokotse, and 30 others brought an urgent application against the trade union on 18 July after their suspensions. Ntlokotse indicated in the court documents that on 14 July Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim had told her the union’s central committee had decided to “immediately suspend her membership” pending a disciplinary hearing into her conduct regarding her Saftu presidency. The central committee said Ntlokotse contested the Saftu presidency position against Numsa’s caucus position to support another candidate. The 30 suspended Numsa members from various regions said their suspensions were intended to prevent them from participating in the upcoming congress, thereby barring them from exercising their democratic right. In his ruling, Moshoana said not only were the mass suspensions unconstitutional, the union’s central committee also lacked the authority to place the Mpumalanga regional council under administration. The judge said the court’s ruling did not prevent Numsa from holding its national congress, but the union could only do so in line with its own constitution. Numsa said it was studying the judgment. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Thuletho Zwane at BusinessLive. Read too, Numsa suspensions 'unconstitutional and invalid', conference interdicted, rules Labour Court, at Fin24 Vavi spars with Numsa ahead of metalworker union’s congress City Press reports that the rift between National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) general secretary Irvin Jim and SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) boss Zwelinzima Vavi is overshadowing the forthcoming Numsa congress (also known as the “metalworkers’ parliament”). The congress was scheduled to commence in Cape Town on Monday, but has since been interdicted by the Labour Court. Two months ago, tension between the two was palpable at the Saftu congress, where Numsa was left frustrated after the majority of delegates voted against its motion to lift the suspension of four senior Saftu officials. The four were suspended after their plans to suspend Vavi had come to light. In a 23-page letter, Vavi defended himself against allegations of unleashing propaganda against Numsa and having no regard for its future or leadership. The allegations against him were included in Numsa’s 11th congress report, which Jim shared with all regions. The congress report reads: “Vavi has absolutely no regard for the future of Numsa or its leadership. In his capacity as a Numsa deployee, he speaks recklessly and unprovoked about the relationship between Numsa and the vanguard party it has catalyzed.” The “vanguard party” referred to was the Social Revolutionist Workers’ Party (SRWP), which fared badly in the 2019 general election. In addition, Jim threatened that Numsa’s national executive committee (NEC) expected Vavi – as its deployee – to champion its aims and decisions, failing which Numsa would invoke the principle of recall, in line with chapter 9 of its constitution. In response, Vavi asked: “Why didn’t Numsa tell me in 2017, when I was elected, that I was expected to champion the aims and decisions of Numsa or face a recall?” In the congress report, Jim claimed that he and the SRWP had nothing to do with the infighting in Saftu, or with the tension within the national office-bearers’ collective. Vavi countered by saying that Jim had endorsed his deployees, during the second national Saftu congress and in regional congresses, to boldly sing songs that opposed him. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Noxolo Majavu at City Press (subscriber access only) Other internet posting(s) in this news category
Guards at Middelburg Hospital attacked by guards from rival security company News24 reports that a security guard was injured on Thursday when he and his colleagues on duty at Middelburg Provincial Hospital, Mpumalanga, were shot with rubber bullets, allegedly by officers from a rival security company. According to Mpumalanga police spokesperson Selvy Mohlala, the motive behind the shooting was unknown, while five suspects aged between 26 and 40 have so far been arrested. Mohlala said on Thursday between 14:00 and 15:00, security guards from another company allegedly arrived in a taxi and started shooting at the hospital guards. One of the guards on duty sustained minor injuries and was treated at the hospital before being discharged later the same day. The five arrested guards from the rival company face charges of discharging firearms in the public space and assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. Police are also probing allegations of a live round having been fired during the incident. The five were expected to appear at Middelburg Magistrate's Court soon. Read the original of the report in the above regard by Zandile Khumalo at News24. Lees ook, Veiligheidswagte glo by hospitaal aangeval, by Maroela Media Other internet posting(s) in this news category
Fraudulent Covid-19 vaccine certificates selling like hot cakes in Joburg SowetanLive reports that rogue healthcare workers, officials and scammers are making a killing producing and selling fraudulent Covid-19 vaccine certificates from Soweto to the Johannesburg CBD. Sowetan spoke to six sources who are part of the syndicates operating from public clinics in Soweto, who collude with scammers that operate from dingy shops in the Joburg CBD. A certificate can cost between R400 and R3,000 for those who do not want to be jabbed but need the certificate for work purposes. The syndicates are pocketing huge sums of money as many workers are required to produce vaccination certificates by their employers as most companies are starting to allow people back into offices. According to the syndicate, their biggest clients are people employed in retail, restaurants, the banking sector and call centre agencies. The scam is conducted in two ways, with the most common and cheapest one involving the services of a vaccinator who works from a clinic. Another method includes a middleman who works directly with an official from the health department. The group that produces fraudulent vaccine certificates in the Joburg CBD uses a shop located along one of the busy streets. Deputy health department director-general Nicholas Crisp conceded that there were corrupt individuals within the system, but said the government had taken measures to remove those demanding cash to issue Covid19 vaccine certificates. “We are aware of cases of vaccinators taking bribes to rig the system but most of those cases were recorded during the peak of the Covid-19 fifth wave. Current information does not indicate that there is a major problem but the Hawks continue to monitor all reported leads,” Crisp advised. He added that a number of officials had been dismissed and criminal cases opened against them. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Bafana Nzimande at SowetanLive Other internet posting(s) in this news category
Another wage agreement for textile sector as blanket workers sign two-year deal Fin24 reports that the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers' Union (Sactwu) advised on Sunday that blanket workers have now also settled their 2022 wage negotiations, with the new increases ranging from 7% to 9.11%. The two-year deal was signed after three rounds of negotiations and will come into effect on 1 August. According to the Cosatu-affiliated union, for the Metro areas an increase of 7% will apply for each of the two years of the agreement, while non-metro areas will see an increase of 9.05% for the first year and 9.11% for the second year. The deal, which was concluded under dispute processes of the National Textile Bargaining Council, also "provides for other improvements", according to Sactwu general secretary Andre Kriel, one of which is that Covid-19 vaccination must remain voluntary unless legislation makes it compulsory. Sactwu has also settled its wage negotiations in the woven cotton sector for a two-year deal, which includes a 7% increase. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Marelise van der Merwe at Fin24
Sibanye-Stillwater says miners taken hostage at K3 shaft in May is typical of social unrest Miningmx writes that about 50 employees at Sibanye-Stillwater’s Marikana mine were held hostage over two nights in May, according to a letter addressed by the company to the alleged perpetrator, the Marikana Unemployment Forum. The forum was ordered in terms of the letter dated 11 June to repay R2.26m representing lost PGM ounces that ought to have been mined during the forced lock-in of employees. Sibanye says instances such as this are not uncommon. “It’s a frequent occurrence. Generally, we’re able to manage it, but it’s a problem as a result of the political environment. There’s a lot of stuff going on in the background,” the gold and platinum group metals (PGM) producer’s James Wellsted indicated. Thabisile Phumo, head of stakeholder affairs at Sibanye, said in this particular case the forum’s leaders enlisted community members – some of whom might not not have been employees – to march to the K3 shaft at Marikana. They locked the gate at 6pm on 11 May. Employees were eventually released on the evening of 12 May. “It’s a risk because some employees could have health issues and there’s also the trauma of the event. It’s a health and safety risk,” Wellsted pointed out. Phumo indicated: “We do anticipate more of this… We have been engaging robustly, informing the community on what we are doing, hoping for peace”. Community demands relate to jobs and procurement opportunities. Sibanye says it keeps an open door policy provided community members follow the channels. While it claims its intelligence is good, protests sometimes take it completely by surprise. Now, with the tenth anniversary of the Marikana atrocity on the horizon (August 16) and the ANC’s elective conference scheduled for December, the political temperature in society is rising. “Should there be any instability or heightened political conflict, we get caught in the middle. We get caught in the cross-fire,” Phumo lamented. SA’s mines are often the only employer in their regions. In June, auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke painted a bleak picture of local government performance. Mining companies, and even the larger contractors, think increasingly that supplementing municipal functions will become a common practice. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by David McKay at Miningmx Other labour / community posting(s) relating to mining
SA Reserve Bank becoming reckless on interest rates, claims Cosatu The Citizen reports that according to trade union federation Cosatu, the SA Reserve Bank (SARB) is moving from being tolerably assertive to becoming overzealously reckless on interest rates. This was indicated after the repo rate was increased on Thursday by 75 basis points, a day after it was announced that consumer inflation was at its highest since 2009. The latest hike – the steepest hike since 2002 – brings the repo rate up to 5.5% and the prime rate to 9%. It is expected to impact heavily on South Africans with debt. Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said that, while they appreciated the need to keep inflation in check, which would have an impact on workers and repeal their wage increases, to continue to use the monetary policy to deal with high inflation was both “naïve and reckless”. “It’s going to depress the demand domestically when some of these issues aren’t necessarily the responsibility of National Treasury. So, for the Reserve Bank to continue to claim that it has tools in its tool kit to fix the inflation is a little bit naïve and reckless,” he commented. According to Pamla, National Treasury, working with other governments at a geopolitical level, could intervene in respect of the high cost of fuel and wheat prices due to Russia’s ongoing war in the Ukraine. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Faizel Patel at The Citizen March by Cosatu members on Friday against cost of living The Citizen reports that “End poverty” and “High electricity pricing kill the poor” were just some of the slogans on placards of Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) members who marched to the Department of Trade and Industry on Friday to hand in a memorandum lamenting the high cost of living. The members handed over a memorandum of demands to a representative of the ministers of public enterprises, finance, minerals and energy and employment and labour. The memorandum highlighted the impact of the fuel price increases, high transport costs and unemployment, poverty and the electricity crisis. John Sithole said he was fed up with the government: “We are not suffering, we are dying. You talk about budgeting; we don’t even know what that is. We don’t have money to budget because we are not working. It’s a problem: the water, electricity and the petrol.” He added that South Africans wanted to work, but not for peanuts. “There are people who go for cheap labour. It’s not that we don’t want to work, but we know what we are worth,” he stated. Sithole said his children, who completed school in 2016 and 2017, were also unemployed. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Marizka Coetzer at The Citizen
Saftu charges that banking sector serves the interest of dominant capitalist faction without regard for workers Cape Argus reports that the SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) has condemned Standard Bank’s decision to sever ties with Independent Media (IOL). Saftu national spokesperson Trevor Shaku accused the banking sector of serving the interests of the dominant capitalist faction and not caring that the negative consequences of the move would affect workers. He said: “The siege of Independent Media by the hypocritical commercial banks will rob the media landscape of press diversity, lead to retrenchments, and open a space for other narratives to be hegemonic.” The statement from Saftu followed that by the Insurance and Banking Staff Association (Ibsa), a union representing workers in the banking sector, which on Wednesday issued a statement slamming Standard Bank’s decision. The decision by Standard Bank followed a threat from a number of commercial banks to cut ties with the Sekunjalo Group of Companies’ (Sekunjalo) chairman, Dr Iqbal Survé. Although Standard Bank, in its official statement, did not disclosed the reasons for severing ties with the company, other banks cited “reputational risk”. This is something Sekunjalo as a group is challenging through several interrelated legal actions. Shaku said that like any media group, Independent Media employed a wide range of workers, and in the interim as Independent was forced to make alternative arrangements to pay its staff, the workers would be affected or inconvenienced by non-payments. He said if all banks, including Nedbank (against which Sekunjalo had an interim interdict prohibiting it from closing its accounts) succeeded in cutting ties with Sekunjalo and its linked companies, the business might close and the workers would be retrenched. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Mwangi Githahu at Cape Argus
Row over race hinders Eskom’s efforts to keep lights on amid skills crisis Sunday Times reports that as SA faces its biggest power crisis in the democratic era, Eskom executives are divided on the critical skills deficit hindering the power utility’s ability to provide electricity. Several senior leaders at the state-owned company have said there is disagreement along racial lines about the skills issue in the upper echelons after a SOS from public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan for those with experience to come to the rescue. One insider said: “You know when you talk about the issue of skills at Eskom, even at executive level, it depends on whether you’re speaking to a black person or a white person, and you will hear a different answer. There is a feeling that when whites say there are no skills, they are talking about blacks who are now in charge of most of these power stations. The blacks feel that the whites only say this because they do not recognise their capacity.” Another said: “The view from human resources is that Eskom should not talk about the lack of skills and how this contributes to load shedding because it will anger some of the unions who feel that it is a concession that the aggressive affirmative action and employment equity that was implemented in the past has failed.” Gordhan last week sent a letter to Solidarity’s chief executive Dirk Hermann to thank the trade union for its offer of assistance and to ask Solidarity to supply a list of engineers and technical experts who could be recruited to assist. This led to outrage by labour unions and others on social media as they construed this to mean that Gordhan was racialising the skills issue. Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha said: Eskom is making use of external skilled resources and will continue to do so to augment skills gaps in the organisation, and to provide accelerated development and skills transfer through mentoring and coaching of employees.” Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Sabelo Skiti at Sunday Times (subscriber access only). Read too, Eskom skills shortage boiling over into race row, at BusinessTech. And also, Themba Godi labels Pravin Gordhan racist over Solidarity Eskom plan, at Pretoria News Other internet posting(s) in this news category
Seifsa relaunches its training centre in Actonville, Benoni Engineering News reports that the Steel and Engineering Federation of Southern Africa (Seifsa) on 22 July officially relaunched its Seifsa Training Centre (STC) in Actonville, Benoni. The STC has been an entrenched entity in the metals and engineering industry’s training sphere for the past 35 years. About a year and a half ago Seifsa began a considerable structural and repositioning of the centre to position it for the future and to bolster the quality of young artisans trained to fight the country’s challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality. The STC is run in partnership with Thuthukisa, a specialist advisory, consulting, project management and skills programme delivery company. The STC has been transformed from an olden-style training centre focused mostly on apprenticeships into a Fourth Industrial Revolution- (4IR-) ready training centre. Speaking at the relaunch, Seifsa CEO Lucio Trentini said the STC, which has always been known as a specialist apprentice training and test centre, now, in partnership with Thuthukisa, was able to offer a unique one-stop integrated multiple-benefit offering in the fields of skills development and business solutions. The STC now offers multidisciplinary expertise in engineering, high-end artisan and technical development, human capital, strategy, project and programme management, consulting, accreditation, and entrepreneurship and small business incubation capabilities. The centre has the capacity to train 250 people at a time and offers apprenticeships in ten trades. The training centre is a Department of Higher Education and Training and national Artisan Moderation Body-registered Trade Test centre and has trade-tested more than 400 candidates a year, since 2014. Read the full original of the report in the above regard at Engineering News
Rape scandal rocks Tshwane Police Academy SowetanLive reports that a 45-year-old police sergeant has appeared in court in connection with the rape of a trainee at the Tshwane Police Academy. The accused allegedly raped the 25-year-old woman on 16 July where he works as an instructor. He was arrested on 19 July and his case has been postponed to this week. National police spokesperson Col Athlenda Mathe said the SA Police Service had instituted an internal disciplinary process. “The management of the SAPS has condemned the incident and is currently providing the trainee with psychosocial services and other necessary support,” she advised. The current training intake commenced in April and will run until December. The trainees will thereafter be placed at different police stations. The victim said she was still in disbelief and asked not to relive the horror. She said she chose to be a police officer because she hoped to help deal with the scourge of gender-based violence in the country. “Never in a million years did I ever think that I would fall victim to what I wanted to fight against. I am dealing with this trauma day by day but it is not easy,” she said. Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union spokesperson Richard Mamabolo said they took such matters seriously and they would want to see the matter properly investigated, bringing the perpetrator to book. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Amanda Maliba at SowetanLive
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