House Chairperson, hon members, distinguished guests on the gallery, comrades and friends, fellow South Africans, firstly, allow me to join millions of our compatriots in paying tribute to one of our best broadcasters, Vuyo Mbuli, who passed on last weekend; and may his soul rest in peace.
Let me remind this House about the clarion call made by the real Congress of the People that met in 1955:
Peace and friendship amongst all our people shall be secured by upholding the equal rights, opportunities and status of all; South Africans shall strive to maintain world peace and the settlement of all international disputes by negotiation - not war.
This Budget Vote takes place at a time when South Africa enters the critical moment of the collective bargaining season. It is also true that we have experienced greater turbulence in industrial relations in our young nation.
These challenges in the area of labour relations and collective bargaining in the year under review have also provided vital insight and lessons going forward, and will be noted in history as necessary painful steps in building our young nation.
Precisely because mining has been and remains a key pillar of our economy, its troubles echo all over the country and affect many industries in its wake. So it was that when ructions occurred recently in the mining sector, especially in the platinum belt, it left in its wake not only dead or maimed compatriots but a changed collective bargaining framework and a considerable dent in the economy - the effects of which will be felt well into the future.
Added to this, the strikes in the road freight sector and the protest action by farmworkers in the Western Cape reminded us of just how important the responsible exercise of labour relations is to the country and to the economy.
We do want to appeal to citizens not to despair and throw their hands in the air on the basis of the challenges we are facing. After all, the very foundation of this nation is based on significantly worse challenges that we overcame. We rise with the morning sun, time and time again, and rededicate ourselves to the ideal of a better life for all. We do so as part of the human effort and endeavour to create a society on the basis of equality, fairness and justice.
Our country is steeped in the art of negotiations and dispute resolution, and for this reason the Department of Labour, in consultation with other affected departments, has engaged organised labour and organised business in concluding a peaceful and stable framework for the mining sector. Talks are also continuing about the character of a new centralised bargaining arrangement in the platinum sector.
In the light of the challenges in the collective bargaining front, and attendant developments, the department will host a labour relations indaba, an event that will see stakeholders and role-players engaged in a conversation on the future of collective bargaining and social dialogue. We want to generate greater interests and concerns of social partners in respect of labour relations conflict, and identify measures to strengthen labour relations and dialogue in order to achieve labour market stability and peace.
To achieve this, the Department of Labour is working closely with Nedlac and the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration, CCMA. Out of the pain of Marikana and other hotspots, a nation united in the view of how it wants to deal with challenges of industrial relations will rise.
As part of learning from our troubled year, we have also tabled for discussion the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy report that guided us in the setting of the sectoral determination for farmworkers earlier this year at Nedlac. This is to help us see how some of its recommendations can be incorporated into other policy considerations going forward.
The Minister will be engaging the leadership of the Labour Movement to discuss the adversarial nature of our industrial relations and to explore various ways of arresting the potential threat to our system of collective bargaining. The department will also explore areas that present partnership possibilities such as capacity-building and communication. For the collective bargaining institutions to work, we need strong and sophisticated union organisations and strong employer bodies. The bulk of the troubles in the collective bargaining processes mirror the state of organisation in the parties that are involved.
As you may well be aware, the department has always deployed either my office or the institutions under my watch to assist parties in disputes, and so far this has worked well. But this defeats the purpose of collective bargaining institutions that were created in order to free government from becoming involved in workplace issues. You will agree with me that to expect the Minister to become involved in every dispute carries the risk of undermining the very institutions that were set up to do this work and, besides, it is not sustainable nor feasible.
House Chair, it is worth repeating that the Department of Labour is alive to its mandate of ensuring that there is decent work pursued under conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity - the ideals that drove our people to create a blueprint document called the Freedom Charter.
Our mandate directs us to regulate the labour market through policies and programmes developed in consultation with social partners, which are aimed at the following: improved economic efficiency and productivity; employment creation; sound labour relations; eliminating inequality and discrimination in the workplace; alleviating poverty in employment; enhancing occupational health and safety awareness and compliance in the workplace; as well as nurturing the culture of acceptance that workers' rights are human rights.
As hon members are well aware, there are Bills before Parliament in which we seek to address all of the above. I would like to urge hon members to ensure that these Bills are passed into law as speedily as possible so that workers can benefit from an improved legislative platform and protection in line with International Labour Organisation Standards. The amendments will see an enhanced regime of legal and social protection to deal with current realities in our labour market.
This is in keeping with the promises made in the ANC election manifesto in 2009, which promised that:
In order to avoid exploitation of workers and ensure decent work for all workers as well as to protect the employment relationship, introduce laws to regulate contract work, subcontracting and outsourcing, address the problem of labour broking and prohibit certain abusive practices, provisions will be introduced to facilitate unionisation of workers and conclusion of sectoral collective agreements to cover vulnerable workers in these different legal relationships and ensure the right to permanent employment for affected workers.
These commitments have their genesis in the Freedom Charter, which committed the state to ensure that:
All who work shall be free to form trade unions, to elect their officers and to make wage agreements with their employers;
the state shall recognise the right and duty of all to work, and to draw full unemployment benefits;
men and women of all races shall receive equal pay for equal work;
there shall be a 40-hour working week, a national minimum wage, paid annual leave, sick leave for all workers and maternity leave on full pay for all working mothers;
miners, domestic workers, farm workers and public servants shall have the same rights as all others who work; child labour, compound labour, the tot system and contract labour shall be abolished.
Allow me, House Chair, to acknowledge in our presence one of the stalwarts that took part in that historic gathering in Kliptown in 1955, Leon Levy, who continues in the effort of attaining a peaceful environment in labour relations as a senior CCMA Commissioner. Mr Levy, has, in the 1950s and 60s served as President of the SA Congress of Trade Unions, Sactu. That was the first nonracial trade union federation in South Africa, which advocated for unionisation of workers across the colour bar under the theme "Organise or Starve," [Applause.] as well as promotion of one industry, one union, one country, one federation principle.
Let me also pay tribute to another stalwart, in her absence, who was also present at the real Congress of the People in Kliptown, umama Emma Mashinini, who was one of the founding members of the Garment Workers Union and later went on to be elected General Secretary of the Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union of South Africa. [Applause.] [Interjections.]