Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted huge decent work deficits in South Africa – Department of Employment and Labour DG, Lamati

South Africa has been able to keep its fatalities to low levels due to its strict enforcement of health and safety guidelines, said Department of Employment and Labour Director-General Thobile Lamati.

He said during the height of an emergency “we are reminded to enforce the laws that we have to in order to mitigate the spread of diseases”.

The Director-General said during the height of Covid-19 the Department had made three observations and these should teach the country a lesson or two going forward!

He said, first there was a huge decent work deficit. Lamati said the second lesson was how backward the public sector was in implementing the occupational health and safety (OHS) Act. He said these deficits in implementation were evident in the inspectors’ reports.

“As much as we are chasing the private sector, as the public sector, we were found wanting and the gap between us and the private sector is huge. The argument that we often advance is that we do not have money to promote OHS,” he said.

The third component identified by Lamati was that there was a lack of employer-employee engagement.

He said the architecture of the Labour Relations Act (LRA) is such that Health and Safety Committees are there to promote engagement. He said the manner in which the vaccination process was being handled clearly pointed out that there was “no meaningful engagement” in the workplaces between the employer and employees.

He further argued that the lack of engagement at factory floor was manifest in the manner and type of demands made during wage talks.

Lamati argued that if there were engagement at factory floor, there would not be a spike in the number of strikes and the nature of demands that are made, “something is wrong there, both sides are not talking to each other”.

He said as policy makers the Department was grappling with the restructure of labour legislation to meet modern challenges.

“The question is how do we adopt new technologies to accommodate the work from home phenomenon,” further to that was how to adapt OHS strategies to face up to new risks. He said the inspectorate was key to facilitate communication on the potential risks and how they utlilise automation to carry their work.

He said many workers and workplaces have shifted and transitioned and this requires the adaptation to new ways of work.

Source: Government of South Africa