President Cyril Ramaphosa has urged employers to take good care of their workers, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic. He made the call during his Workers’ Day speech, as South Africa moves from a stringent lockdown to level 4, which allows certain categories of employees to return to work.
“We must remain vigilant and careful as they resume operations in the permitted sectors. Employers need to take responsibility for the health and safety of their employees, workplaces must adhere to social distancing norms, sanitisers must be readily available and the usual person to person meetings that we are accustomed to must be limited,” says Ramaphosa.
In the video below, President Ramaphosa’s Workers’ Day address:
Workers’ complaints
The KwaZulu-Natal Tourism, Economic Development and Environmental Affairs Department says it has received over 3 000 complaints from workers who have not been paid or received salary cuts for April. The department’s spokesperson Ndabezinhle Sibiya says only about 7 000 companies, out of over one million in the country, have registered with the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) for COVID-19 Temporary Relief Aid on behalf of their workers.
“We have received quite a number of complaints from workers that have not been paid since the lockdown started. MEC Nomusa Dube Ngcube instructed the entity under the Department of Trade Investment KZN to deal with some of these complaints. There is an indication that there are billions of rands that have not been claimed by companies, money that should be paid to workers,” says Sibiya.
Sibiya adds that the department is also investigating the non-payment of over 50 workers at the uMkhuze Bus Service, near Jozini, in northern KwaZulu-Natal.
“The workers that have been affected will be contacted. With this issue, in particular, we can also indicate that already they CEO of Trade and Investment in KZN had initiated the meeting with the Department of Employment and Labour to look into the issue of the workers that have not been paid by uMkhuze bus services,” says Sibiya.
In the video below, SABC’s Ayanda Mhlongo speaks the Mayor of eThekwini Municipality about day one of Level-4 lockdown:
Below is a graphic that outlines Level-4 lockdown regulations:
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