We will take cognisance of those minutes; don't worry, Minister.
We are reliably informed that the interpretation services are operational. I hope hon members will get the right channel. Apologies to you, hon Minister. You can continue with your speech.
UMPHATHISWA WESEBE LEZABASEBENZI: Bayabuza, ngakumbi ezifama, ukuba ide ibuye nini na kubo le Afrika. Isizathu kukuba bona bavuka ngonyezi, baqhuqhe bexhinile bethobele ukukhonza. Betsho ngezo zifutyana zithe ga ngaphandle, benxibe ezo mpahla zingamadlavana, ilanga lithe nka, loo mabunzi ezizithukuthuku. Iinyawo zabo zilele intsente, iintamo zigqolile zixel' ekaxam, izisu zithe nca emqolo yindlala. Batyatyekwa ngezithuko imihla nezolo, balulame, bazole, bangathethi. Anisiva na esi sikhalo nesi simbhonono: Asinamali! Asinamali! Asinamali! (Translation of isiXhosa paragraph follows.)
[The MINISTER OF LABOUR: They are asking, more especially farmworkers, when Africa will be restored to its rightful owners. Their reason is that they wake up in the wee hours of the morning, rush to work being obedient to serve. This they do with their chests out, their worn-out clothes, under the extremely hot sun and their foreheads sweating profusely. Their feet are caked with dirt, their necks resemble those of a leguan and their stomachs are so empty because of hunger. They are being insulted everyday but are still expected to be obedient, calm, and hold their peace. Don't you hear this wailing: We do not have money! We do not have money! We do not have money!]
Such was the cry of the workers in 1957, under the banner of the then South African Congress of Trade Unions, the predecessor to Cosatu: Asinamali [We have no money.] The workers' cry continued:
One pound a day for the factory worker who today cannot buy what he makes. One pound a day for the miner who earns his tuberculosis, and goes home broken, to die. One pound a day for the farm labourer who today ploughs the bitter furrow of misery. One pound a day for the builder of mansions who lives in a shack. A minimum wage of one pound a day for all the workers in the land. One pound a day. Five pounds a week. Asinamali ... though we work and are labelled as workers.
As democrats we have faith in human beings. And here springs our belief that working together as citizens of South Africa we can restore the human dignity of the downtrodden in this land of our forebears.
Hon members, today I have not come to lament the economic crisis whose root causes have neither been foreseen nor fathomed by scholars and those who occupy the corridors of political power the world over. Today I have not come to talk about freedom sans emancipation - a phenomenon that is beginning to loom large in the present world that we live in. Nor have I come to talk about the tragedy of colour zoning that continues to mar every aspect of life in our society. I have not come to talk about the assassins who stand in dark corners sharpening daggers, ready to take human life, including those of their own brothers and sisters. In short, I have not come to talk about the society we are fast becoming, a society of decadence.
Today I have come to talk about those who go to sleep with an empty stomach and go barefoot while others around them are exaggeratingly rich. Today I have come to talk about those of our own who are less fortunate. Today I have come to restate the clarion call that working together we can restore the human dignity of all those who have been deprived of this basic human right.
Decent work remains a dream, a dream that we must strive to fulfil. How can we not strive for decent work when over 800 000 jobs were lost last year alone largely owing to the global economic meltdown. How can we rest when unemployment levels rose to the highest levels in five years? Even among those workers who remain in employment, many are in temporary and casual jobs. Many workers feel caught in a race to the bottom and believe that the current period is exerting downward pressure on working conditions and labour standards. The bargaining strength of labour is being weakened.
Informal jobs in all industries are on the rise, except mining, utilities and trade. How can decent work be achieved if fundamental principles and rights at work are not respected; employment and income opportunities for women are not created; social protection is not extended to all workers; social dialogue is not promoted and institutionalised; and basic human rights at work are not promoted?
How can we not strive for decent work when farmworkers are exposed to hazardous pesticides; farmworkers are not allowed to enjoy the right to freedom of association; and farmworkers are not allowed to form and join trade unions? Workers do not enjoy the right to fair labour practices, and casual workers are suffering employment insecurity and are denied benefits. These developments cannot be left unattended, for our people are restless. People are very angry. People are demanding services from government. They are demanding better quality jobs from employers. They are demanding protection and defence of their bread-and-butter issues from trade unions. The cry "Asinamali" is becoming louder and louder. With increasingly nothing to lose, our people call on all of us to make South Africa a better place to live and work in.
I have said many times before that when the ladder which we are all climbing starts to be shaken, what will matter will no longer be who is on top, but how each one of us hits the ground. Let us not wait for the ladder to shake, but work together to improve the conditions of our people.
One of the critical pillars of our policy interventions is the enforcement of labour laws. It does not matter how good a piece of legislation passed by this House is, if it is not complied with, we are all engaged in a futile exercise. We are not in the habit of settling for futility. In fact, we have started acting in the most befitting manner to address compliance.
To this end, we started revamping our inspectorate into a specialised body of professionals. When this process reaches completion, our inspectors will comprise generalists, specialists and experts. In the course of 2009 we established a national roving team made up of 47 inspectors. The team has the agility to move from province to province within a short space of time and do inspections in different sectors. We have branded them "inspectors without boundaries".
In preparation for this work, the team went through an intensive training programme which encompassed all aspects of the legislation administered by the department. We trained 30 inspectors to specifically focus on the director-general reviews in terms of employment equity. We have narrowed the space for noncompliance in the area of the Unemployment Insurance Fund, UIF, by appointing a team of experts to focus on payroll audits. This will, among other things, ensure that UIF revenue streams are enhanced while compliance, equally, is upheld.
The improved quality of work of our inspectorate enables the department to know facts about the state of compliance. It also enhances our ability to plan better for the future. With confidence we can say that daily and blitz inspections conducted during the year 2009 took our inspectors to 108 961 workplaces. At face value, the levels of noncompliance are alarming; yet the reality drawn from our inspection data shows that 80% of the workplaces visited do comply. Equally important is to note that incidents in the high- risk areas were reduced by 63% from the figures of the previous year. On the basis of statistics from the Compensation Fund and the Federated Employers Mutual Association, we were able to determine that high-risk sectors that include iron, steel, construction and the chemical industries have a combined accident cost value to the economy of R2 billion.
On our agenda for 2010, we have made the implementation of employment services in South Africa a strategic intervention to integrate active labour-market measures, inclusive of job placement services, job search training, career guidance and skills development. When the employment services' potential has been fully unleashed, it will have links with the UIF, the Compensation Fund and the public works programmes. May I say that this is not in the far distant future. As we speak, 47 career counsellors have been deployed at some of our labour centres, and a total of 41 210 people have benefited from their guidance services and career information.
The employment services' IT system has been rolled out to all 125 labour centres. As at the end of December 2009, a total of 476 006 workseekers were registered on the Employment Services of SA, Essa, system and a total of 21 074 job opportunities were registered on the same system. Using the job matching services of Essa, the first 6 845 job opportunities were filled. This is a taste of the good things to come. We are beginning to call the unemployed "baye kwaLabour" [... to go to the Department of Labour.]
We are aware of the complexity and the magnitude of the work that still needs to be done, but we are equally convinced that no single entity, acting in isolation, will be able to deal with the problems of unemployment and poverty in South Africa.
It is in this context that our approach is to embrace strategic partnerships that cut across political mandates, partnerships that embrace collaboration with private sector and nongovernmental organisations. For this to succeed, we must be bold enough to put aside those who draw satisfaction out of paper pushing, and give responsibility to those who have a burning desire to restore the human dignity of all the people of our country.
Hon Chairperson, allow me to refer to skills development, a function that now resides with the sister Department of Higher Education and Training. Up until 31 October 2009, when skills development was transferred to the Department of Higher Education and Training, a total of 10 885 learners, against a target of 18 902, were registered in various artisan trades. More than 75 300 workers registered during the previous year and completed training in scarce and critical skills through learnerships, apprenticeships and other learning programmes. During the same period, a total of 39 207 unemployed people, against a target of 26 000, were assisted through the National Skills Fund to enter learning programmes.
What we have learnt in the past decade of administering the Skills Development Act is that there is a huge potential to create employment for those who have gone through training. Our mistake is to focus on employment at the expense of self-employment. Entrepreneurial awareness is vital in this regard.
In line with the ANC government call to focus on rural development, there is a window of opportunity for us, working together, to open wide any door left ajar. This would allow our rural communities to start co-operatives and other rural enterprises suitable for their environment. Often, those who complete their training become stranded with skills as they have no employer to engage them. On the other hand, they get no support to start businesses. This is where South Africa has dismally failed to conquer unemployment and poverty.
Through the envisaged partnerships when learners complete their training, exit strategies should include the possibility of creating self-employment vehicles which will be supported with the necessary resources for a given period of time to ensure sustainability. The Gauteng pilot project, to which I will refer later, will assist us to test new ideas. It will also assist us to learn more as we brave our way through the unknown in search of new pathways to contain unemployment and poverty.
In the past year ending February 2010, there were 158 000 more contributors on the database of the Unemployment Insurance Fund as compared to the end of March 2009. The difference amounted to 7,7 million workers. However, the Unemployment Insurance Fund paid benefits to 746 352 beneficiaries in the total amount of R5,3 billion - a 71% increase in unemployment benefit payments compared to the previous year. This is a clear indication of the impact of the current economic crisis and the job losses of the past year, as indicated earlier.
Furthermore, in the coming year my Ministry intends to improve the benefits from eight to 12 months. We also intend to consider the inclusion of public servants in the Unemployment Insurance Fund, hoping that the hon members will support those Bills when they come before Parliament.
We have also committed to saving jobs and finding alternative employment pathways for those workers who are unfortunate enough to be retrenched. Working together with our social partners through Nedlac, we have put in place a training lay-off scheme. The training lay-off scheme was launched jointly last September with the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, the CCMA. The Unemployment Insurance Fund and the National Skills Fund jointly committed funds for the scheme in the amount of R2,4 billion. The UIF alone contributed more than R670 million for the training of the unemployed, R40 million of which has been allocated for 2009-10, R200 million for 2010-11, R210 million for 2011-12 and R219 million for 2012-13.
The UIF has also allocated a sum of R2 billion to the Industrial Development Corporation to enable it to assist companies in distress. As of March 2010, my department had concluded four training lay-off agreements covering 2 100 workers in the engineering, auto and mining sectors. We will need to do more if we are to cover the 800 000 more workers who lost their jobs in the past year. We need both business and labour in this regard.
The Department of Labour also adopted some short-term measures to lessen the impact of the global economic crisis. We initiated a pilot project in Gauteng to test the concept of retraining the retrenched workers that were receiving Unemployment Insurance Fund benefits, including those who have exhausted their UIF credits for alternative employment.
The learners were enrolled as from 1 April 2009 in different accelerated artisan training programmes lasting between eight and 18 months. These learners were registered with the Merseta - the Manufacturing, Engineering and Related Services Sector Education Training Authority - and the Construction Seta. The project is going well. I personally conducted an inspection of the project on 5 March 2010. Government departments, such as the Gauteng department of local government and the Gauteng department of infrastructure development, and companies such as Bytes Technology, Direct Channel Holdings, Munich Basson and da Gama, Super Group, Unitrans and Imperial Logistics are providing work experience opportunities to these learners and have also guaranteed them full employment on completion.
Since 2004, we have conducted a lot of research into the labour market in an attempt to better understand and increasingly appreciate the evolving labour market trends in the country. In the year of action, more research is not required. We now know from the research conducted by Jan Theron that their analysis "confirms the earlier findings about the application of the legislation concerning unfair dismissals to the temporary employment services situation".
The conceptual problems that were identified can be categorised as follows: the difficulty in identifying the correct employer, the related difficulty of identifying the correct procedure, the difficulty in defining dismissal, and the difficulty in determining the reason for dismissal. We also know from research conducted by the Sociology of Work programme at Wits University that their report proposes:
... the outlawing of this labour broking phenomenon. The workers are calling. Since 1957 they continue to chant:
More food to eat, clothes, warmth. A little light in the deep night of poverty. Freedom from pass laws, freedom from the midnight police terror. Freedom from the ghost squads haunting the street corners. Freedom from prison and forced farm labour - the horned fingers and welts ploughed into sorry flesh. Freedom to walk without fear as the companion of the heart.
My answer to the workers is simple: This is the government that knows where people live, that listens, and that is committed to what it said in its manifesto. We have listened. And in the year of action, we must act on issues raised by our people. This is the year of action. Yes, we shall address the problem of labour broking, and the problem shall exist no more. Yes, we shall prohibit the abusive practices. Yes, we shall introduce provisions to the law to facilitate the unionisation of workers.
We are dealing with the unintended consequences of our own law passed by this Parliament, hence the major review of our labour law. Section 198 of the Labour Relations Act has created a lot of confusion. Our labour legislation has not impeded the growth of the temporary employment agencies or services. Bargaining councils have tried to regulate this terrible tendency of abusing and exploiting workers without success. The 2002 amendments and the rules that exist thus far have not assisted either. Therefore, the coming amendments will provide clarity in dealing with who the employer must be so as to effectively remove the difficulty of identifying the correct and the real employer.
The amendments will make it easy for the CCMA to determine whether a dismissal has taken place. The Constitution of the Republic gives every worker the right to form and join a trade union, and also the right to strike. This right is for everyone and every worker, whether temporary, permanent or on contract. We are on course. All of the Bills will be in Cabinet for amendments in due course: the Labour Relations Act, the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, the Employment Act, the Unemployment Insurance Fund Act, the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act. This is the year of action; there shall be dust. Hallelujah!
As part of our efforts to improve the status of vulnerable workers, we are investigating the possibility of establishing provident funds in a sectoral determination for farmworkers and domestic workers in 2011. Discussions with service providers and stakeholders are already under way to develop specifications for the funds. In the past year we have also concluded sectoral determinations in the private security, contract cleaning, civil engineering, and the wholesale and retail sectors.
In conclusion, allow me to say: we look to the future with confidence and great optimism. South Africans are people of unlimited capabilities that are often noticed by those who are far beyond our borders. Often we allow ourselves to be consumed by self-hatred. We are also ravaged by propaganda that focuses exclusively on all that is negative about South Africa.
Ndivumele ke ndicaphule kuNozulu, uMpafana, imbongi u J J R Jolobe kumbongo othi: UKwenziwa Komkhonzi. [Allow me to quote J J R Jolobe in his poem entitled: UKwenziwa Komkhonzi.]
Andisenakubuza ndisithi kunjani na Ukukhanywa yintambo yedyokhwe emqaleni Kuba ndizibonele kwinkabi yomqokozo, Ubumfama bamehlo busukile ndagqala Kuba ndikubonile ukwenziwa komkhonzi Kwinkatyana yedyokhwe.
Yab'igudile intle, izalelw'inkululeko Ingaceli nto mntwini izingca ngobunkomo. Uthe umntu mayibanjwe iqeqeshwe ithambe, Ezilungiselela ukonga ukunga uyasiza, Kuba ndikubonile ukwenziwa komkhonzi Kwinkatyana yedyokhwe.
Is it not high time we stood our ground and defended what we are and what we stand for? Is it not high time that we communicated the good news about the good things that South Africans do? Let us unite and work together and restore our dignity.
In closing, allow me to thank the members of the Portfolio Committee on Labour, especially the chairperson, Mrs Lumka Yengeni, for the selfless support they give to me and my department. Sometimes they even counsel me. I don't have a mother so I enjoy being counselled. [Laughter.] By the way, even the members of the DA, who are members of this committee, counsel me. I've just met one of my brothers outside, and we were counselling each other, isn't that so? [Laughter.] Probably their Chief Whip doesn't know that. They must communicate what they do in counselling me. Thank you. [Time expired.] [Applause.]