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Employment Act hammers big and small business - Freight & Trading Weekly - 7 July 2000 edition -
- Freight & Trading Weekly
7 July 2000 edition
Employment Act hammers big and small business
SAA applies for exemptionsEd Richardson
SOUTH AFRICAN Airways (SAA) is among a large variety of businesses and organisations that are being hammered by the effects of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act and has applied for exemptions from certain provisions in the legislation, according to the DP's Rudi Heine.
According to a reply to a parliamentary question, Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana has confirmed that nearly 400 000 employees are affected by the Act. This includes nearly 21 000 at the SA Chamber of Mines, over 10 000 at SAA and Eskom, and more than 10 000 staff working for individual welfare institutions.
Heine says that, judging by the number of applications for exemptions received, Mdladlana has no choice but to undertake an extensive and wholesale review of the Act, with a view to positively amending the following sections:
- Section 10 - overtime
- Section 12 - averaging of hours
- Section 14 - meal intervals
- Section 15 - daily and weekly rest periods
- Section 16 - payment for work on Sundays
- Section 17 - night work
- Section 18 - public holidays
- Section 23 - proof of incapacity
- Section 27 - family responsibility leave
- Section 31 - keeping of record
"Mdladlana simply cannot afford to draft cosmetic amendments to the Act. We need to see definitive and real changes to the Act, and its negative affects on job creation and sustainable employment need to be scrapped," says the DP spokesman.
Earlier this year, Mdladlana told a parliamentary media briefing that his department had listened to labour and the unions and that he would specifically amend our labour laws to make retrenchments and dismissals even more difficult.
"In his reply to my question, the minister now appears to be singing from a different songsheet, and we welcome his change of policy," says Heine.
He quotes Mdladlana as saying "In particular, we will seek to review provisions that have unintended negative consequences on employment creations."
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