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BL Premium reports that the Department of Employment and Labour (DEL) recently intensified its compliance inspection raids, particularly within the hospitality sector, in a bid to clamp down on contraventions of labour laws and the Immigration Act.
So far, the DEL has enforced department corrections amounting to more than R10m and has arrested 81 undocumented workers. Meanwhile, it plans to expand the department's inspectorate capacity from 2,000 to 20,000 inspectors over the next three years. “According to the BCEA (Basic Conditions of Employment Act), the labour inspectorate does not require a warrant or to give you any notice to enter a workplace or another workplace [where] employers carry out their business or keep employment records. There is such a broad spectrum where this power entry can apply without a notice or a warrant,” advised Leila Moosa of law firm Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr. Speaking at a webinar on immigration compliance and workplace enforcement, Moosa pointed out that the DEL fulfilled the inspectorate and the monitoring functions in relation to a broad spectrum of laws, the powers of which were derived from the BCEA. However, the labour inspectors’ powers of entry are limited to what is termed “at reasonable times”, which relates to an employer’s business and the nature of its operations, and the inspector must notify a trade union representative and employer that they are present in the workplace and the reason. Employers are also within their rights to ask for a labour certificate to confirm the powers of a labour inspectorate before they attend to any of the exercises in the workplace. Senior employment law associate Taryn York said that many of the compliance raids had revealed violations of the Immigration Act, particularly concerning expired work visas. As a result, HR practitioners, foreign nationals and employers had faced arrests for their noncompliance.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Noxolo Majavu at BusinessLive
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