The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) welcomes the African National Congress led government’s tabling of the Employment Services Amendment Bill at Parliament, where it is now before the Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour.  The Federation engaged extensively on the Bill at Nedlac and looks forward to the Bill’s processing and adoption by Parliament and implementation by the Department of Employment and Labour.

The Bill provides a long overdue response to the flood of undocumented migrant labour into the economy over the past decade.  The Bill enables the Minister for Employment and Labour to set limits on the number of documented migrant workers that can be employed in a workplace, region, economic sector or profession.  These limits are critical for an economy battling to cope with extremely high and rising unemployment levels of 43.8% overall and more than 60% for youth. 

We have seen countless unscrupulous employers, in particular in agriculture, fuel stations, restaurants, construction amongst others; maliciously exploiting the desperation of undocumented migrant labour as their vulnerability opens them to wildly abusive exploitation.  The Bill correctly affirms the inalienable labour rights of all workers, irrespective of origin, and increases penalties for employers who break the law.

It is urgent that funding for the Department of Employment and Labour’s recruitment drive for an additional 10 000 labour inspectors be prioritised and honoured as this would provide a decisive boost to efforts to crack on such criminal violations of South African and migrant workers’ legally binding labour rights.

It is crucial that the Critical Skills List be continuously reviewed by government with business and labour at Nedlac to ensure that it is correctly positioned to attracting scarce skills to South Africa, to upskilling local workers and to ensuring unemployed South Africans are prioritised for training with such needed skills.

Whilst migration is correctly ingrained with the history of humanity and a rich part of South Africa’s DNA, current levels are unsustainable given our dangerously high unemployment rate.  The Bill seeks to find the correct balance and ensure the state is capacitated to set limits and protect the needs of workers.  These are needed and their implementation must be expedited.  A balanced approach to migration, in particular for our neighbouring states with whose fate South Africa’s is intertwined, is necessary.  This is crucial if we are to avoid the periodic outbreaks of unacceptable xenophobic, Afrophobic and vigilante violence.

Issued by COSATU

Matthew Parks (COSATU Parliamentary Coordinator)

Mobile: 082 785 0687

Email: matthew@cosatu.org.za