So, why is the government budgeting R27 million for the 2013- 14 financial year to keep the council going? There is another serious problem regarding this amending Bill. The ANC has also rejected an amendment to a section of the Bill which proposes that temporary employment service placements should last for six months only, after which the placed employee would be deemed an employee of the client.
The DA argued for a 12-month period, but we were persuaded to accept the six months proposed in the Bill as reasonable, but the ANC disagreed and reduced the period to three months. Earlier, they had argued for a zero- month period which, if it had prevailed, would have effectively banned temporary employment services or labour broking, as the trade is commonly called. Notwithstanding the ANC's reluctant climbdown, the DA believes that rejection of the original proposal will cost the country dearly in terms of job losses. The research speaks for itself. The effective banning of labour brokers would result in a loss of employment for more than 850 000 workers currently employed by labour brokers.
This is in terms of the Department of Labour's own initial regulatory impact assessment, which also warned that banning labour brokers would not only contribute to increased levels of unemployment, but also "deprive the households attached to these workers of a valuable source of wage income". No one knows - as the Minister indeed indicated - what the impact of the three-month period would be, since the DA's calls for a new regulatory impact assessment were rejected. In our struggle to eliminate unemployment and poverty, the ANC's gamble is most certainly a very risky one indeed.
According to the Adcorp Employment Index for May 2013, labour brokers constitute a R44 billion industry employing 19 500 internal staff and just over one million agency workers and temps in the country. "Labour broking is the fastest growing sector of the South African labour market", says Loane Sharp, Adcorp's labour economist. It would seem that recent calls by President Jacob Zuma to Members of this Parliament to put South Africa first as we do our work have been ignored by members of his own party as they pushed through last-minute amendments to this Bill. During the heady days of apartheid, I and millions of other people in the country could not understand how the National Party could continue to pass one bad and destructive law after another. Now I understand. First, there was the Protection of State Information Bill, also known as the Secrecy Bill, and now there is a Labour Relations Amendment Bill. If this Bill is passed, it will be a very bad and destructive law and the ANC, Cosatu and the rest of the people of South Africa will come to regret this day. History will judge us very severely when hundreds of thousands of hungry and angry people will roam the streets of our townships, suburbs and cities and when the once vulnerable workers, in whose name the Bill was passed, have become even more vulnerable, unemployed, and destitute job seekers. Remember this day.
What South Africa needs now is inspirational leadership, multiparty engagement and determination to bring about true reform in the best interests of the country's future. South Africa can no longer afford to be held hostage by those who serve their own narrow interests while the poor, the vulnerable and the unemployed are left out in the cold. [Interjections.] [Applause.]
In the words of Mr Herman Mashaba, Chairman of the Free Market Foundation:
Instead of destroying jobs through unwise labour legislation, the government should be exploring every possible way to increase the demand for labour. A part-time job through a labour broker might not be the most favoured option of a job seeker, but it is certainly a great deal better than long-term unemployment.
The DA will not support this Bill. [Applause.]