Call to restructure bargaining council
|Published
The public service bargaining council has to be decentralised as workers are diverse and have different salary needs.
This is according to independent labour expert Professor Johann Maree. He was speaking at the third biennial labour relations conference held in Pretoria this week.
Maree said: “The public service collective bargaining has to be restructured and centralised. It is inappropriate that the whole service with diverse needs can negotiate together.
“I agree there should be equal pay for equal work. This cannot be easy when you have nurses in hospitals and teachers at schools. There cannot be a grading of different work across different jobs.”
But Cosatu president Sdumo Dlamini disagreed with Maree.
“Maybe he does not understand,” Dlamini said.
“We have sectoral bargaining councils and provincial sectoral bargaining councils. There is no need to decentralise because that will dilute the collective power of labour to bargain. It will create a crisis in the wage gap and instead of closing it, it would widen it.
“If we have a uniform public service bargaining council we are able to carry one agenda.”
The conference is being hosted by the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council and has been planned in anticipation of the International Labour and Employment Relations Association World Congress to be held in 2015.
The summit is aimed at bringing together people involved in labour relations and human resources. It will look at collective bargaining in the public service in relation to domestic and international trends.
Deputy Mineral Resources Minister Godfrey Oliphant said the government was struggling to deal with the frequency of strikes.
“While our labour relations should certainly be supportive of economic growth and employment, it is important to recognise that our law is not focused on securing employment for citizens of the country.
“Labour legislation is principally concerned with providing the employed with basic protection against unfair labour practices, unsafe working conditions and a decent living wage.
“There have been many calls for a review of the labour legislation, as if that is a panacea for all our labour-related problems.”
Dlamini said he was worried about strike-related violence.
“We should have social dialogue about following laws.
“We have to condemn the assertion that labour is the only party to be blamed for strikes and the decline in the economy.” - Pretoria News