The Department of Labour (DoL) will from Monday (January 14) host an extra series of week-long public hearings in the Western Cape, the epicentre of the farmworkers’ industrial action, on the review of the farmworkers minimum wages.
Department of Labour’s Acting Director of Labour Standards, Titus Mtsweni, said the extra public hearings follow a request by labour unions to hear the voice of the workers in the areas, which are regarded as the epicentre of the industrial action.
Following last November’s farmworkers’ industrial action, the Department of Labour entered into a national, month-long farmworkers minimum wage review public hearings intended to quell violent strikes in the farming sector.
The process included visits to all nine provinces. The curtain on the sometime tension-filled public hearings came down on December 18 in Mpumalanga.
Mtsweni said the process of crafting a report on the outcome of the public hearings, that were held last year was already underway, but felt that “it will not be appropriate to have a report without direct input from the area(s) mostly affected by the industrial action”.
The six public hearings will be held as follows:
- 14 January – Grabouw (to include Somerset West areas) at 18h00
- 15 January – Wellington and includes Paarl and Stellenbosch at 18h00
- 16 January – De Doorns, Worcester, Rawsonville and Ceres – at 18h00
- 17 January – Robertson, Barrydale, Ashton, McGregor and Swellendam – at 18h00
- 18 January – Outshoorn, Ladismith, Zoar and Beaufort West – at 18h00
- 20 January – Vredendal and Citrusdal – at 14h00
Mtsweni expects the departmental report on the inputs collated during the public hearings to be forwarded to the Employment Conditions Commission (ECC) in time ahead of its meeting at the end of this month.
The report will dwell on issues of the minimum wage; status of the sector, process issues; consideration of different submissions by stakeholders and recommendations by the department.
He said once ECC has met and deliberated it would make recommendations to Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant on the new minimum wage for farmworkers. Mtsweni said as things stand the Minister is expected to make an announcement on the new wage determination/sectoral determination (SD) in February, and this will be implemented from 1 March 2013.
The ECC is a structure composed of government representatives, labour unions, and employers - that advises Labour Minister on wages and other conditions of employment in the vulnerable sectors including agriculture/farming sector.
The public hearings are part of a consultative process brought forward by the department to review the farmworkers’ minimum wages, to help quell the deteriorating situation in the farms that was threatening the agriculture sector in South Africa.
In terms of Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA), it is stipulated that the provisions of sectoral determination remain binding until they are amended or suspended by a new or amended SD, or they are cancelled or suspended by the Labour Minister. The current determination ends in February.
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