Numerous applications for exemption and institutional failure are hampering the government’s efforts to reach its target of six million workers being paid the minimum wage instituted in January. By Musawenkosi Cabe It has been almost nine months since the National Minimum Wage Act came into force and yet labour institutions, organised labour and employer organisations are still trying to familiarise themselves...

City argues that court doesn’t have jurisdiction to do that By Lucas Nowicki On Thursday the High Court in Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown) heard an application by the Unemployed People’s Movement (UPM) to dissolve the Makana Municipal Council for violating its constitutional mandate by failing to provide basic services to the community. The UPM is calling for the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional...

Casual Workers Advice Office vows to continue its work By Zoë Postman In the midst of xenophobic attacks on mostly immigrant-owned shops in Germiston, Johannesburg, non-profit organisation Casual Workers Advice Office (CWAO) was looted and set alight on Monday evening. Shattered glass and CWAO cards were strewn across the pavement outside the office. On Tuesday afternoon, CWAO staff members were cleaning up the...

Employees of the Expanded Public Works Programme have essentially become ‘permanent casuals’ who earn a pittance and have no job security or collective bargaining power. By Anna Majavu For the past 12 years, about 150 people have swept the streets and cleared blocked drains in Uitenhage and Motherwell. They work in a government-funded programme administered by the Eastern Cape Department of...

A Pietermaritzburg High Court ruling has found that municipalities were in breach of the Constitution in not providing labour tenants and farm occupiers with essential and basic services. By Musawenkosi Cabe The recent high court judgment declaring that three municipalities in Pietermaritzburg must provide water, sanitation and waste collection on farms has been hailed as a victory for farm dwellers across...

Legal experts have questioned the interdict granted to a group of Eastern Cape farmers, saying it unjustifiably limits the farm workers’ constitutional right to speak out against alleged poor treatment. By: Anna Majavu The high court in April granted commercial farmers in the Eastern Cape an interdict against farm workers and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the area. But it has been described...

Human Rights Watch calls for decriminalisation  By Zoë Postman “Two years ago a policeman arrested me. He was alone and took me somewhere in the town in his car and then told me to give him free services and so I did,” a sex worker from Tzaneen, Limpopo, is quoted as saying in a new report. She was one of 46 female sex...

“This agreement can never make full redress for the loss and harm suffered by gold mine workers and their families and communities over the last 100 years,” says judge By Tania Broughton There was a lot of “give and take” from both sides, but the settlement agreement, which has resulted in a R5 billion compensation fund for gold miners afflicted with Silicosis...

Farm workers in the Western Cape winelands are still living in single-sex hostels at Oak Valley, as they were during apartheid. Now they are taking legal action. By Ra’eesa Pather In the pristine lands of one of the Western Cape’s best known farms, workers are restless. After months of negotiations and protest action, they have filed a court application for a...

Ruling has implications for the legal concept of derivative misconduct By Wilmien Wicomb On 22 August 2012 a group of Dunlop employees started a protected strike that soon turned violent. Despite an interdict and the intervention of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa at the time, the violence escalated. On 26 September 2012 all the employees who participated in the...