Pretoria – Public hearings into introducing a Sectoral Determination (SD) for the building sector has kicked-off on a positive note.
The Department of Labour held its first building sector public hearing, on Tuesday, in Pretoria North, to elicit inputs into the feasibility of establishing a SD for the sector.
The hearings aim to engage both employers and workers on the categories of workers to be covered by the SD and the factors to be taken into consideration when setting minimum wages.
It also aims to determine the mechanism to be utilised for setting minimum wages and annual increases, including the level at which minimum wages should be pegged and any other conditions related to the operation within the sector.
The purpose of SD legislation is to lay down sector specific conditions of employment for workers such as the minimum wage rates, hours of work, leave, termination of employment, work at night and on Sundays, among others.
The building sector currently has no SD, it is instead covered by the Bargaining Councils found in areas like Bloemfontein, East London, Kimberley, North and West Boland, Cape of Good Hope and parts of South and Eastern Cape.
Addressing stakeholders during the start of public hearings, Department of Labour Deputy Director: Employment Standards, Unathi Ramabulana, explained that the department’s investigation to introduce a minimum wage “regime” was not an attempt to undermine the process of collective bargaining, rather to protect vulnerable workers in the building sector that are not covered by bargaining councils.
“The investigation underway emanates from the Civil Engineering sector investigation conducted by the Department of Labour and the Employment Conditions Commission (ECC) in 2012. That investigation looked at the feasibility of extending the scope of application of the Civil Engineering SD to cover the Building sector.
“The ECC, a body that advices the Labour Minister on matters of Sectoral Determinations and Basic Conditions of Employment Act, recommended that it was not appropriate to extend the scope of application and that as separate investigation needed to be conducted to establish protection for workers in the Building Sector,” Ramabulana said.
The national public hearings continue today at Klerksdorp Civic Centre (Kock Street), North West; Krugersdorp’s Banquet Hall (Commissioner Street), Gauteng and in Nelspruit at a Labour Centre Boardroom (Brown Street), Mpumalanga.
The hearings are scheduled to end on 29 August 2014. – SAnews.gov.za
