Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has welcomed Thursday’s Constitutional Court’s ruling on labour brokering.
The court ruled that workers may only be in the employ of both a labour broker and a main employer for three months. After three months, the worker will only be working for the main employer and not the labour broker.
Cosatu says this is not just a victory for National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) but the entire working class.
Sizwe Pamla is spokesperson for the labour federation which has long opposed labour brokering.
“We’re happy now that the court has ruled on it. Now employers have got no excuse, if they fail to implement this law then they’ll be violating the law. The Department of Labour itself now needs to increase its capacity to monitor, send in inspectors to make sure that all employers respect this ruling. For us as Cosatu, our campaign for labour broking to be banned still stands, but we feel this court victory is not just for those Numsa members but for all the entire working class in general.”
Numsa spokesperson Phakamile Hlubi-Majola elaborates:
“Today we have confirmation on how to interpret that section of the law. The Constitutional Court came out unequivocally to say that the way that this section of the law had been interpreted is this, workers who work under labour brokers may only work for them for three months if that contract is extended beyond three months then those workers automatically become full time employees of the main employer and are no longer to be run under the umbrella of a labour brokering company.”
