Warning to employers on new rules for casual staff

Employers in the warehousing and logistics sector must implement clearly defined staffing solutions to avoid falling foul of significant amendments to the Labour Relations Act (LRA) regarding the hiring of temporary and casual staff. This was the advice from cargo and personnel management firm Clydesdale general manager, Tyron Hubbart, who recently gave a presentation on the amendments to employers in Durban. The launch of a new company, Outsourced Project Specialist (OPS), which specialises in resource managing outsourced, noncore functions and labourintensive activities for shortterm projects was announced at the event. Hubbart said the significant changes to the LRA included the strengthening of the collective bargaining powers of parttime or temporary employees who earn below the threshold of R205 433 per year (less than R17 000 per month). “Labour brokers’ employees, part-time and temporary staff have been given protection and special rights under the law, particularly where they work as temporary or part time employees for longer than three months. They will enjoy the protection of the Act in that they should be treated no less favourably than someone who works as a permanent staff member in a similar position,” he said. Hubbart said this meant that employers would have to pay equal wages to part-time and temporary staff members engaged in the same work as permanent staff if they could not justify a difference in wages for reasons such as long service. “In the past, big companies would use labour brokers to find cheaper labour but now the law says that if workers are employed for more than three months employers must justify why the work is temporary,” he said. Hubbart said employers had expressed “interest and nervousness” regarding the amendments but he added that the changes were positive as they merely codified acceptable labour practices already tested in the Labour Court. He added that the amendments would clean up the industry of fly-by-night operators, without major impact on blue chip companies that already treated staff fairly. “Companies need to clean up their labour pool to reduce their risk of exposure and they must design and develop staffing solutions to reflect the different ways they engage with labour, whether permanent or temporary, so they can justify why they treat people differently,” Hubbart said. The warehouse and logistics sectors, operating around ports such as Durban, experienced justifiable demand for temporary labour, he added, but it remained unclear how the amendments would impact rights of parttime staff to benefits such as sick and paid leave. INSERT & CAPTION If workers are employed for more than three months employers must justify why the work is temporary. – Tyron Hubbart