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, 25 November 2022.
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KZN sergeant killed, captain injured on Saturday after suspect in assault case opened fire News24 reports that an alleged gunman who shot dead a sergeant and fired at two captains investigating an assault case in KwaZulu-Natal has been arrested. The three officers, investigating a case of assault with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm, entered the suspect’s house in Snathing village, Pietermaritzburg on Saturday night, said police spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Robert Netshiunda. “[The officers] found themselves under fire, allegedly from the suspect, and the sergeant sustained gunshot wounds. She was certified dead on the scene,” he reported. One of the captains was also hit and was rushed to hospital with serious injuries. The 42-year-old suspect was apprehended while a licenced gun and 18 rounds of ammunition were confiscated. He faces charges of murder and attempted murder. Read the original of the short report in the above regard by Tammy Petersen at News24 Man who murdered KZN guard during CIT heist in 2020 on the run after getting bail The Citizen reports that the Hawks (Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation) in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) are on the hunt for a suspect who made a run for it after being released on bail. The suspect is facing charges of robbery with aggravating circumstances, murder and attempted murder after he was involved in a cash-in-transit (CIT) heist during which a security guard died. On 14 February 2020, a G4S van was delivering money at a service station in Kranskop when one of the security guards was accosted by armed men after getting out of the vehicle. The gunmen demanded money, took it and fatally shot the guard before fleeing with an undisclosed amount of cash. In pursuit of the suspects, a shootout with the police later ensued and the money was recovered. Senzo Jeffery Magwanyana (21) was later arrested and made a court appearance, where he was able to secure bail. When he was due to appear in the dock, he failed to return to court. A warrant of his arrest has been issued. Read the original of the report in the above regard at The Citizen DA's Jack Bloom accuses government of covering-up findings of investigations into deadly Bank of Lisbon fire News24 reports that four years after the Bank of Lisbon building fire in which three firefighters died, reports into the incident are still not public. Firefighters Simphiwe Moropane, Mduduzi Ndlovu and Khathutshelo Muedi died while trying to extinguish the blaze that started on the 23rd floor of the building in 2018. The building has since been demolished. During answers in the Gauteng legislature, Health MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko said no further investigations would be done into the fire at the building that the provincial departments of health and human settlements had occupied. She reported that her department had received the Occupational Health and Safely Incident Investigation report from the Department of Labour, in conjunction with the police, after the fire. The report indicated that fire suppression systems were not installed in the building. It also found that both of the tenant departments had not requested the certificate of occupancy from the landlord. They had also not conducted risk assessments of occupancy and had further contravened the Environmental Regulations for Workplaces of the Occupational Health and Safety Act by failing to ensure that firefighting equipment was serviced and in good working condition. Gauteng DA health spokesperson Jack Bloom noted: “Despite these findings, no action has been taken against anyone for these severe lapses that led to the fire that devastated the entire building.” He said he had been trying for years to get details of the reports into the fire, without any success. "Former Premier David Makhura kept promising to make public a 'consolidated' report, but this never happened. According to Makhura, there were four investigations. These were done by the SA Police Service, the City of Johannesburg, the provincial government, and the Department of Labour," Bloom recalled. In her responses, Nkomo-Ralehoko said: "Investigation reports are never communicated publicly. It is left with the discretion of the report owner." Bloom accused the provincial government and the department of a cover-up. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Tebogo Monama at News24
CWU demands 15% pay hike, government bailout as SA Post Office plans job cuts Fin24 reports that the Communication Workers Union (CWU) wants the government to bail out the struggling SA Post Office (SAPO) and ensure that the entity has a monopoly in the delivery of parcels weighing 1kg or less. Last week, the union held marches around the country, including to the National Treasury and the Department of Communications in Pretoria and also to Parliament in Cape Town. Its demands included a 15% salary increase across the board, a R900 housing allowance, and a R2,500 housing subsidy. The CWU furthermore demanded the finalisation of legislation to make SAPO the only legal service provider for the delivery of parcels 1kg or less as well as the scrapping of SAPO's separation from Postbank to make the latter a fully-fledged bank. SAPO has persistently struggled to pay over employees' medical aid contributions to the medical aid provider Medipos and is likely to consider taking steps to retrench staff after this year's Budget Speech effectively paved the way for it to cut 6,000 or 40% of its jobs in the medium term. SAPO spokesperson reported that Thursday’s marches did not have a significant impact on operations at Post Office branches, but that the entity's leadership would study and consider the CWU's demands. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Khulekani Magubane at Fin24
Richards Bay Minerals wants court to stop trust payments to amakhosi Mail & Guardian reports that Richards Bay Minerals (RBM) wants the Pietermaritzburg High Court to remove amakhosi and their families as trustees and beneficiaries of four trusts into which it has thus far paid R500 million in dividends. This is to stop “abuse” of the funding, intended for community development purposes. RBM has also halted any further payments to the trusts until the court rules, as it believes that as much as 80% of the money has been spent on salaries, expenses and payments to unauthorised third parties. This is after amakhosi from the Dube, Mkhwanazi, Sokhulu and Mbonambi traditional authorities pulled out of a process to reform the trusts – set up in 2009 as part of a land claim paid to the communities and a share in an empowerment deal for 24% of the company – to which they had agreed when paid out R77 million last August. The Rio Tinto subsidiary has approached the court as it fears that further payouts to the trusts would perpetuate the “historic pattern of abuse of trust funds and gross lack of governance” to “the greatest disadvantage of the intended beneficiaries of the public benefit trusts”. In court papers, RBM managing director Werner Duvenhage said if the court did not order the trusts to be reformed, “there is a reasonable prospect that the trust income flowing through the dividends paid…will not be utilised to promote and protect the interests of the host communities who are the intended beneficiaries of those dividends”. RBM has asked the court to amend the beneficiary provisions by removing amakhosi and their families as trustees and beneficiaries; to modernise the trust provisions to improve controls and accountability and to introduce provisions relating to social investment policies of the trusts. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Paddy Harper at Mail & Guardian (subscriber access only) Other general posting(s) relating to mining
As cost of living soars, single salaries no longer enough to pay the bills Sunday Times writes that in the face of rising interest rates, food prices and fuel costs, middle-class South Africans are being forced to work multiple jobs to keep their heads above water. The one-stream salary, say employment and financial experts, is a thing of the past as those unable to cope with the pressure on their purses are turning their hobbies and passions into pay. On Thursday, the SA Reserve Bank hiked the repo rate by a further 75 basis points, taking the prime lending rate to 10.5% and making home loans, car payments and credit card debt that much more expensive. The latest Old Mutual savings and investment monitor report found that 51% of 1,500 people surveyed rely on multiple income streams, an increase of 4% from 2021. Old Mutual’s Vuyokazi Mabude noted that the rising cost of living was driving South Africans to look “for ways to manage their money and increase their savings”. This has sparked the rise of polyjobbers – people who have multiple income streams or jobs – a trend that is here to stay. “The polyjobbers trend reflects how many are adapting to their various challenges and seizing opportunities, which we anticipate will continue to be relevant. As we look to the future it will be important to understand the impact of this trend on employers and working South Africans,” said Mabude. Another survey of 2,000 people, conducted by global recruiter Robert Walters, casts more light on why South Africans are turning to hustling on the side. It found that 48% of professional workers in SA do not feel that their pay is an accurate representation of the work they do. It also found many are taking on side jobs as a way of arming themselves against increased costs and a looming recession — developing passions into pay in many cases. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Suthentira Govender at Sunday Times (subscriber access only)
Rocks delivered instead of coal, a cut conveyor belt and an arrest during Eskom's past two weeks of sabotage News24 reports that rocks mixed with coal delivered to Majuba, a conveyor belt that was cut at Lethabo, and an arrest for sabotage at Camden – all over the past two weeks – suggest that the campaign of sabotage at Eskom’s power stations is not abating. In a wide-ranging interview last week, Eskom chief operations officer Jan Oberholzer said that, over the past four years, he had learned that "greed is an untreatable disease". He explained further: "It’s dumbfounding. I can’t believe that people don’t feel that R10 million is enough. It must be R50 million, and when they get to R50 million, it’s still not enough, so they have to have R100 million." Oberholzer's perceptions about greed were driven in large part by recent incidents at Eskom power stations. The rate at which power stations are breaking down means Oberholzer and his colleagues in generation, the division responsible for the stations, are constantly in firefighting mode. On average, more 30% of Eskom’s 47,000 megawatts in generation capacity has been unavailable between 1 April and mid-November, due to breakdowns. Since December 2019, government has known that Eskom desperately needs between 4,000 and 6,000 megawatts of additional generation capacity, simply to prevent load shedding. More is needed to create space for desperately needed, years-overdue maintenance. While the challenge is immense in and of itself, Eskom is also having to contend with acts of sabotage, driven primarily it appears, by greed. Recent arrests at the Camden power station show progress, after Eskom hired private sector security firms to assist. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Kyle Cowan at News24 (subscriber access only). Read too, Arrest of Eskom truck driver hints at criminal grip over SA’s coal value chain, at Miningmx
Seventeen JSE-listed companies are still 'men-only' in the boardroom Fin24 reports that seventeen of the JSE-listed companies analysed by non-profit company, Business Engage Association, and its initiative, the 30% Club Southern Africa, still did not have a single woman on their boards last year. There were 33 other companies that only had one female director on the board. But these numbers still showed some improvement in that between 2017 and 2020, the number of companies with no female board director hovered around 30. The "one-and-doners" – as Business Engage and the 30% Club call them – decreased from 67 in 2018 to 33 in 2021. For the latest report, the two firms looked at the five-year movement in gender representation at board level of 159 listed companies, with a focus on those who were on the exchange from 2017 to the end of 2020. While the report is meant to be constructive rather than judgmental, it still ruffles feathers annually about the slow pace of female representation on boards of companies in SA. Kearney senior advisor, Jo-Ann Pöhl, commented: "We've seen a shift in women on board from 23% to 32%, which I think is somewhat of a win. In executive roles, if we take the CEOs, it has doubled, although it's still single digits. We are seeing a trend in the right direction. Are we winning in some instances? Yes. Have we won the war? No," she commented. By the end of 2021, 27 companies had achieved gender parity at board level or better, but they only represented 10.5% of the 159 companies analysed. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Londiwe Buthelezi at Fin24 (subscriber access only). Women afoot on JSE boards, with report finding some progress in past five years, but not enough, at Business Times (subscriber access only)
Complaints about teacher misconduct soared by 50% over past year Sunday Times reports that the number of complaints of improper, disgraceful and unacceptable conduct against teachers has shot up over the past year. According to the recently released annual reports of the nine provincial education departments, the number of complaints addressed during disciplinary hearings rose just over 50% for the year ending in March compared with the previous year. In one of the worst cases, a teacher at Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa Secondary School in Pretoria was found guilty of having told a grade 11 pupil in February that she had a big vagina, and of having asked her several times over a period of months to demonstrate how she had sex with her boyfriend. Eight of the departments, which finalised a total of 2,852 disciplinary hearings over the past two financial years, fired 176 teachers for various types of misconduct in financial 2021 and 204 in financial 2022. According to the figures, there was also a spike in offences involving mismanagement of school funds, from 67 to 115. However, the number of corporal punishment cases handled by provincial education departments dropped from 402 to 276, while sexual misconduct cases showed a slight decline from 144 to 110. Thirona Moodley, CEO of the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of SA for KwaZulu-Natal, said the teacher misconduct statistics were of “great concern” as these educators were bringing the profession into disrepute. Grant Butler, president of the SA Principals Association, called the number of teacher misconduct cases – even in the categories showing a decline – “unacceptably high”. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Prega Govender at Sunday Times (subscriber access only) Umlasi teacher promoted despite having been found guilty of caning pupil Sunday Times reports that children’s rights organisations and law centres are outraged after a KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) teacher was promoted to a senior post despite having been found guilty of caning a matric pupil for bunking extra classes. Malibongwe Khumalo, a head of department at Umlazi Comtech in Durban, was appointed deputy principal at the school last month. The KZN education department placed him on three months’ precautionary suspension in March after a video of the incident in February went viral. Though the governing body was aware of the incident, he was appointed as acting deputy principal in May. A month later, the governing body interviewed several candidates for the position, including Khumalo, whom it appointed in October. SA Council for Educators (Sace) CEO Ella Mokgalane confirmed that after a disciplinary hearing in July, Khumalo was fined R20,000 – R10,000 of which was suspended for 10 years – and given a final written warning. The sanction also included the removal of his name from the roll of educators. However, this was also suspended for 10 years provided he was not found guilty of a similar offence. Khumalo was ordered to do a professional development course in classroom management within six months of the sanction being handed down. Mokgalane said the decision to promote or not “remains the prerogative of an employer and Sace does not dictate how an employer should conduct their affairs on such matters”. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Prega Govender at Sunday Times (subscriber access only) Other internet posting(s) in this news category
SA’s pension system scores high on integrity, but global study flags risks and shortcomings Business Maverick reports that SA’s pension system recently scored a high 78 on integrity in the 14th Mercer CFA Institute Global Pension Index (MCGPI). A high level of regulation and the government’s attempts to encourage saving through tax incentives played a role in the higher integrity rating. However, SA fell short when it came to the two other focus areas of sustainability and adequacy. The MCGPI is a comprehensive study of 44 global pension systems, accounting for 65% of the world’s population. SA scored 44.2 for adequacy, 49.7 for sustainability and 78.4 for integrity. To put this in context, Iceland scored above 83 in all three categories. Belinda Sullivan of Alexander Forbes, Mercer’s strategic partner in Africa, noted that the index this year focused on the shift from defined benefit to defined contribution funds. “South Africa has a relatively mature defined contribution environment, with this shift having started more than 30 years ago. However, despite the opportunity to save in the private sector, there have been insufficient measures in place to ensure that more people have some kind of retirement savings and that they preserve these savings for retirement,” Sullivan pointed out. The net effect was that although many might start out saving for retirement, continual changes from one company retirement savings scheme to another, combined with the opportunity to withdraw funds meant that these members ended up with insufficient savings and were forced into reliance on family support, government grants or both. Sullivan advocated that the government should remove the means test of the state old age pension to ensure a minimum safety net. Employers who do not have retirement savings plans in place can also make a change by putting something in place for their employees. The two-pot system proposed by National Treasury will also make a significant difference in terms of improving the amounts preserved by individuals. Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Neesa Moodley at Daily Maverick Other internet posting(s) in this news category
Cosatu in Limpopo welcomes arrest of VBS-accused municipal officials EWN reports that labour federation Cosatu in Limpopo has welcomed the arrest of officials in the province in connection with the Venda Building Society (VBS) corruption and money laundering case. The former Mayor of the Elias Motsoaledi Municipality, Julia Mathebe, and the former municipal manager, Minah Maredi, were arrested by the Hawks on Wednesday. Cosatu said the Hawks should continue to make more arrests without fear or favour to bring all those accountable to justice. In 2018, the bank went bankrupt, with over two thousand people losing their life savings in the process. A forensic report by Advocate Terry Motau later revealed that over R2.7 billion had been looted from the bank. Cosatu pointed out that this scandal led to the loss of jobs for the workers of the bank, and left many ordinary citizens robbed of their life savings. Read the original of the short report in the above regard by Gloria Motsoere at EWN
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