The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) notes the South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU)’s peddling of fake news on the draft labour laws amendments.  Whilst normally COSATU would avoid criticising a sister federation, we are left with little choice due to SAFTU’s consistent spreading of such falsehoods amongst workers in pursuit of headlines.

We can assure workers, that SAFTU’s claims that workers’ hard-won rights, guaranteed by the Constitution and set in law, have been abandoned through some “secret talks at Nedlac” have as much relation to the truth as the flat earth society.

SAFTU, which has been an absent federation at Nedlac, has recently stumbled to life claiming that the Department of Employment and Labour’s draft Code of Good Practice on Dismissals has given a blank cheque to employers to fire workers without following the clearly stipulated processes of the Labour Relations Act or the protections set in place by the Basic Conditions of Employment Act.

Nothing could be further from reality.  A Code of Good Practice is exactly that.  It is a guide that seeks to explain to employers, in particular small business owners, workers and shop stewards their rights and obligations.  Labour laws, like all other laws, are often written in user unfriendly language that the ordinary employee or employer may not have the time or resources to fully understand, let alone to be familiar with relevant case law.  A Code, in essence a guide, cannot amend the law.  All it can seek to do is clarify. 

SAFTU further claims that the labour laws have been gutted, and workers’ rights and protections deleted by these “secret Nedlac betrayals!”.  It would have been of great benefit to the self-proclaimed high priests of the revolution of SAFTU, to have attended the Nedlac engagements to which they were consistently invited, or at least to seek clarity from their sister federations who did attend.  They would have found out their cries of conspiracies, are little more than fantasies in some cases, and woefully outdated information in others.

Nedlac met for nearly three years where social partners were allowed to table proposed amendments to the Labour Relations, Basic Conditions of Employment and National Minimum Wage Acts.  The nation’s most progressive and experienced labour lawyers, including the very authors of the Acts, were hired to provide technical and drafting expertise.  Labour submitted extensive proposals, many of which were agreed to.  The Department of Employment and Labour as well as Business submitted their proposals, some of which were deeply offensive to Labour, and which we managed to subsequently block. 

If SAFTU took its mandate as seriously as it takes debiting workers’ membership fees, it would have attended these negotiations.  SAFTU demanded to be invited to Nedlac and was accordingly admitted.  Yet throughout these three years of negotiations where meetings took place monthly, and at times weekly, SAFTU could only be bothered to attend 3 or 4 meetings.  Even when it attended, its delegates were invariably late and not familiar with the topics under discussion.  By SAFTU’s own public admission it only attended meetings in March 2024 (two years after negotiations had commenced) and that its “participation was severely hindered by internal capacity constraints.”  It’s telling that SAFTU’s capacity constraints only materialise during Nedlac engagements (virtual and in Rosebank) on matters as fundamental as labour rights, but they do not encounter such challenges when it comes to gallivanting off to Geneva.

Whilst COSATU will leave SAFTU’s antics as the lonely cries of a struggling federation desperate for media attention, fuelled by its increasing irrelevance, a misguided conspiratorial complex and best characterised by Vladimir Lenin as leftwing infantile disorder, it is critical to assure workers that their hard won constitutional and labour rights remain intact.  Whilst COSATU did not secure all we had sought at Nedlac, we are confident that we have managed to ensure workers’ rights remain secure and that many critical gains advancing workers’ protections have been won, including:

• Defeating a variety of proposals to weaken our labour laws and roll back workers’ rights.
• Increasing severance pay for workers losing their jobs from one to two weeks per annum employed.
• Extending protections for the National Minimum Wage to discount deductions, e.g. bonusses, from their calculation.
• Guaranteeing on call workers a minimum number of shifts to ensure they can earn sufficient income.
• Requiring labour inspectors to check compliance with pension fund payments by employers.
• UIF assisting workers in the event of an employer defaulting on monies owed to them.
• Recognising the rights of atypical workers to collective bargaining and other labour rights, e.g. artists, musicians and actors.
• Further negotiations that will take place soon on ensuring atypical workers enjoy the protection of the UIF and Compensation Fund.

Some areas of substantial disagreement remain, including exempting start-ups from collective bargaining council agreements and the definitions of unfair labour practices.  COSATU is continuing to engage with government on these to ensure that when the Bills are finally tabled before Parliament, those and all other remaining areas of disagreement are resolved in the interests of workers.

The Bills are now before the state law advisor and will then be released for public comment and later retabled at Nedlac for final consideration on any further needed amendments.  They will then be submitted to Cabinet and Parliament, which would hold further public consultations.  COSATU remains confident that the final legislation will continue to protect workers’ rights and that such protections will be further extended.

Issued by COSATU

Matthew Parks (COSATU Parliamentary Coordinator)

Cell: 082 785 0687

Email: matthew@cosatu.org.za