The protection of vulnerable workers in South Africa came under the spotlight of the Labour Portfolio Committee earlier today with its Chairperson, Alleck Nchabeleng, emphasising the need to give effect to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention on the rights of workers that find themselves at the most receiving end of abuse by employers.
Under payment of wages, gross violation of conditions of employment like the right to join trade unions and collective bargaining, regulation of recruitment agencies, reasonable hours of work, limit on payment in kind and investigation of complaints to ensure that labour rights were on par with those of other workers were among some of the challenges facing the domestic sector in the country.
“Unpacking the concept of decent work in relation to the domestic sector and in line with national and international standards was critical towards ensuring that domestic workers lead a better life in South Africa like all other workers in the country,” said the Director-General of the Department of Labour, Nkosinathi Nhleko in his opening remarks to the Seminar on Decent Work for Domestic Workers in Parliament.
Les Kettledas, the Deputy Director-General: Labour Market Policy, said, the South African legislative framework already provides what the instrument requires to a large extent but where we fall short, includes areas such as occupational health and safety, regulation of placement agencies which the current labour law amendments seek to address, provision of migrant workers related to the protection of social security benefits and the right to repatriation.
On what can be done to promote decent work for domestic workers, Kettledas said, Parliament should engage in the discourse around decent work and ensure that the decent work concept is mainstreamed in the relevant debates, strategic priorities of government, employment creation and rural development amongst others. He also said that the role that should be played by civil society includes support provided to domestic workers, capacity building and skills development initiatives. In the area of trade unions’ interventions, he said strengthening the organisational capacity, protecting the rights of workers in respect of freedom of association and the utilisation of different platforms were key to advancing the interests of workers.
The seminar comes hot on the heels of recent remarks by Labour Minister, Mildred Oliphant who hailed the South African delegation for their meaningful contribution in the adoption of “historic set of international standards” by the 100th Annual Conference of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) held in June this year.
“The discussions that led to the adoption of the Convention on Domestic Workers centred around the fact that new standards on domestic work present an unprecedented opportunity to bring into the mainstream workers who were once deemed to be outside the ILO constituency and to provide guidance to member states of the ILO to facilitate access to decent employment conditions for this historically disadvantaged group, mainly women and girls,” Oliphant said.
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Source: Department of Labour
