At last the debate over labour broking is switching to regulation and enforcement and not banning.

In Worker duped into thinking employer was a labour broker a link was provided to the judgment in question Dyokwe v De Kock NO (Mondi Packaging SA (Pty) Ltd) .

This was followed by the post yesterday Triangular working relationships with a link to the report by Natasha Marrian Labour Court recognises vulnerable workers’ plight first published by Business Day in BDlive.

Click on the link to read the editorial Improve policing of labour laws published by Business Day in BDlive today (free registration is required).   Thanks to Business Day for allowing these random extracts to be posted.

THE Labour Court ruling in the case of a Mondi worker who was dismissed after ostensibly having his employment contract taken over by a labour broker highlights an elephant in the room that the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in particular has been ignoring in its misguided determination to ban such temporary employment agencies.

This is that the solution to the abuse of the system, by both employers and unscrupulous brokers, is to ensure that the law is applied properly and consistently.   The fact that this has frequently not been the case in the past is an indictment not of the law itself, which is largely adequate as it is, but of the Department of Labour and Cosatu’s failure to fulfil their primary purpose.   More rigid labour laws are the wrong prescription for a misdiagnosed disease and simply risk killing off the patient.

That some employers and brokers have exploited the law’s inconsistent application to the detriment of individual employees is beyond dispute.   The Mondi case, in which a man was hired by the paper giant but subsequently told to sign a contract with labour broker Adecco before being dismissed when he was deemed too old for the job, illustrates that regulation of the sector is both necessary and desirable.

The recent political focus on temporary employment, and more effective policing of the law by the state due to increased media scrutiny, have in any event combined with a tough economic environment to drive down the number of agencies operating in the market.   According to research conducted by Adcorp, SA’s biggest labour broker by market share, the number of competitors in the private labour placement industry dropped by 550 to about 2,685 last year.   Most of these are likely to have been small, one-man operations — the so-called bakkie brigade — who are responsible for most of the abusive behaviour.

The revised amendments to the Labour Relations Act, which stop well short of banning labour brokers but will nevertheless add to the cost of doing business, would not be necessary if there was full compliance with the existing law.   It remains to be seen whether the revised version will be policed any better.

Meanwhile, it is an undeniable reality that about 50% of South Africans younger than 25 are unemployed, and for many their only hope of getting a foothold in the labour market is by gaining temporary employment through a labour broker and using the experience they gain to seek a permanent position.