vacancies inLabour legislation
Further stimulation of this trend can only add to the already immense pressure on housing， services， education， health care and more. It could also quite easily trigger more racial clashes in the province as has been seen in the recent past between coloureds and blacks over access to scarce housing， Terblanche writes.
Amendments the road to hell?
Government cannot simply legislate improvements in productivity! Businesses are already trying to maximise their workers productivity in order to maximise profits. Does our government think it knows better how to run a business than those who are in the business of dong business?
Working in heavenIn his recent State of the Nation address president Jacob Zuma again promised that some five million jobs will be created in the coming years. Considering the results of previous such promises and the state of the earthly economy， many commentators regard the promises as pie in the sky. This might be more appropriate than these commentators realise.
The clich has it that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It just might turn out to be true in the case of governments proposed amendments to labour legislation presently up for public comment and scheduled for tabling in parliament in the near future.
The ct that the government has made these plans known so shortly before the municipal elections could suggest that it has given up on the so-called coloured vote in the Western Cape， writes independent political commentator Stef Terblanche in his Monday Briefing of 31 January.
Echoes of apartheid
The relevant proposed amendment states that affirmative action should be determined in terms of national demographics，vacancies inLabour legislation rather than provincial profiles as has been the case uhtil now. In the Western Cape and the Northern Cape， where coloureds are in the majority， the use of provincial profiles has benefited the coloured community. It could also impact negatively on the Indian population of KwaZulu-Natal.
When the minds eye cheats youWorth a read? is not your ordinary book review; it is a meta-review. In other words， it provides an overview of the opinions contained in a variety of book reviews published in the media at large. This weeks meta-review is of The Minds Eye， written by Oliver Sacks and published…
How can we let this be when Loane Sharp from Adcorp Holdings says， labour broking [is]…responsible for about 1-million South Africans in work on any given day， and is the single biggest and most effective channel for introducing never-employed black youth into the labour market?
A former Werstern Cape premier， Peter Marais said he would demand a meeting with president Jacob Zuma to challenge the proposed changes and has started a petition to oppose the changes that would have negative implications for the coloured community.
Legislating people into employment cannot solve the unemployment problem. If the proposed amendments announced by newly appointed Minister of Labour， Nelisiwe Oliphant， at the final cabinet meeting of 2010 are passed， they will exacerbate this unacceptable， economy-killing and soul-destroying situation， he writes.
Winning is all in the mindAt a calculated guess， it could be South Africas turn to grab the trophy， is the verdict of Martin Crowe， arguably New Zealands finest-ever batsman， about the possible champions of the current Cricket World Cup at the end of only the first weekend of the six-week tournament.
Governments responsibility is to create an environment that will increase employment opportunities， reduce unemployment， and reduce poverty. The proposed amendments to our labour laws achieve none of these objectives. Allow business the freedom to operate and grow， and the problems of unemployment， low wages and poverty will de into nothing， he argues.
This effectively allows the client to outsource all his labour requirements (including labour law problems) to the labour broker. The reason why this rounabout way of doing business has developed is due entirely to our existing labour legislation. The laws meant to protect workers create such an unnecessary and intolerable burden on employers that they prefer to pay labour brokers a fee to administer their staffing requirements and problems
Read More…
Read More…
If government wishes to resolve the countrys unemployment problem， it must allow citizens to be adults and to have the freedom to negotiate their own terms of employment.
The proposal is that Section 198 of the LRA should be repealed and replaced by the Employment Services Bill. According to a new， stricter definition of employer included in this proposed Bill， no temporary employment service will be able to be the employer of any workers that it places in work， effectively bringing an end to labour broking as we know it.
vacancies inLabour legislation，In an article on Politicsweb Jasson Urbach of the Free Market Foundation last week argues that if instead of creating jobs government wants to kill job creation， the intended amendments are the way to go.
and， pushed up its unemployment rate although the lowest of all provinces still high at over 20%.
Possession the name of the gameThe Lions might have come up short in terms of the scoreboard， and might have suffered their 14th Super Rugby defeat in succession at Ellis Park on Saturday， but it could have been an error in judgement to prematurely dismiss their title chances in this series.
And scandalous is the proposal that if businesses il to notify the public employment services agency of any vacancy or new position they will be slapped with a minimum fine of R10，000. Another great incentive for businesses to close down and let the unemployed number grow， Urbach writes.
One of the intentions of this amendment could be that it would stimulate further mass migration to the Western Cape from the impoverished rural areas of the Eastern Cape. Over the past 15 years massive migration has already given rise to an enormous spread of shanty settlements in the Western Cape
The four bills， the Basic Conditions of Employment; Labour Relations; Employment Equity， and Employment Services Bills also came under attack from other sources， with the proposal to eliminate labour brokering attracting the most criticism.
Read More…
He also writes that one of the tasks of economics is to explain the forces that affect human decision-， and a key element of economic theory is that incentives matter. When incentives change， peoples behaviour also changes. Compelling employers to pay the same wage to employees in the same job is a recipe for disaster and will disincentivise improvements in productivity.
The Basic Conditions of Employment Bill also proposes giving the Minister the power to set minimum increases of remuneration in addition to setting minimum rates of remuneration. All incentive is negated when wages are determined politically rather than what is justifiable economically or as a result of productivity. The only foreseeable result， yet again， is increased unemployment.
Read More…
One proposed amendment to the Employment Equity Act is reminiscent of some vacancies in department of health eastern capeof the attempts at social engineering during the apartheid days and， among others， seems to aim at changing the population profile of especially the Western Cape， the only province not governed by the ANC.
On the question of labour brokers Urbach warns that we have to be very aware that if the proposed amendments are passed， and the trade unions get what they want， unemployment in SA will skyrocket.
Read More…
A labour broker or temporary employment service is defined in Section 198 of the Labour Relations Act (LRA) as a person who， for reward， provides another person to a client to work for that client for remuneration. Section 198 also provides that the temporary employment service (i.e. the labour broker) is regarded as the employer of the worker in question. Thereby， the labour broker， not the client， is the employer of the worker.
Confidentiality versus transparency: Wheres the balance?The initial hype of the massive dumping of American diplomatic cables in the public domain is behind us， but the impact of the WikiLeaks story will linger for some time to come. In ct it is unlikely to ever go back to business as usual for governments， corporations or…
Another budget-busting， ill-conceived idea is the proposal to establish a state employment agency to which every private-sector job vacancy and every new hire will have to be reported. Why create this unnecessary layer of taxpayer-funded bureaucracy when there are thousands of private employment agencies already doing the job quite effectively and which adult work-seekers voluntarily choose to use?