Pretoria - The Department of Labour (DoL) is today pushing ahead with further public hearings and on-site visits as part of reviewing the minimum wages and employment conditions in the taxi and hospitality sectors.
The consultative process is expected to take place in KwaZulu-Natal, with public hearings for the taxi sector to be held at Tropicana Hotel, 85 OR Tambo Parade, Durban.
This will be followed by another session on Wednesday in Richards Bay at Imbizo Conference Centre, 45-57 Biyela Street, Empangeni.
Both hearings will start at 11am.
In the same province, the hospitality sector public hearings will begin with a site visit to hospitality establishments.
Two hospitality sector public hearings are scheduled for Tuesday at Tropicana Hotel at 11am and another on Wednesday at Imbizo Conference Centre at 2pm.
Further consultation will also take place for the taxi sector in the Eastern Cape at the Department of Labour’s Port Elizabeth Labour Centre, VSN Building 3rd Floor, 116-134 Govan Mbeki Avenue today.
Another hearing is scheduled to take place at the Department of Labour’s Labour Centre at Church & Hill Street, 4th Floor, East London. Both hearings start at 11am.
Public hearings for the hospitality sector in the Eastern Cape will also be preceded by a site visit in Port Elizabeth.
On Tuesday, there will be a hospitality sector public hearing at Labour Centre VSN Building at 11am. Another session will be held in East London at the Labour Centre at 2pm.
The public hearings started in February in Mpumalanga. To date, public hearings have been held in the North West, Gauteng, Limpopo, Western Cape and in the Northern Cape.
The hearings are held just ahead of the start of a new minimum wage review on 1 July 2013. The hearings are targeted at interested parties such as the employers, employees, trade unions, employer organisations and the public.
The taxi industry sectoral determination came into effect in July 2005, while that of the hospitality sector started in July 2007.
The public hearings are set to wrap up in early April. Once concluded, the Employment Conditions Commission (ECC), a body that advises the Labour Minister on sectoral determinations, will use the inputs collected to recommend the new determination.
An announcement on the new determination is expected to be made in June 2013. – SAnews.gov.za
