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Thread: Bargaining council

  1. #11
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    Bargaining council madness!

    Dave, what became of this thread? Did you get anywhere?

    I would truly appreciate feedback as the electrical bargaining council has now decided to come and do a spot check on our company. We are a small family run aircon company with 12 employees. We have suffered from severe, severe fraud/theft this year and have had to retrench 2 employees due to these losses.

    Now the EBC has threatened us with" If you dont deduct the fees from your employees, we will close your company". I thought these people are meant to be fighting for our employees rights? But they are so quick to take away our employees jobs? Its ridiculous.

    We, as the employer, do not mind at all paying our half of the prescribed fees. If you have employees these fees are to be incurred.
    BUT - our employees do not wish to belong to this council!! They cannot afford to pay over money to a pension/provident fund. I know I would go ballistic if someone told me I must now pay a percentage of my wages over to a pension fund. Im 23. I need to use every last cent of my paycheck in order to survive. The government has declared the country is in a recession. Times are hard. Not many people can afford to save anymore. And now they are literally forcing them. So maybe they wont have enough food this month or be able to afford enough nappies or doctors visits but yippy, they will have a provident fund. This is their money!!! And they are pleading with me to find a way not to deduct it. Everywhere I turn to, all I hear is I will have to find a labour law specialist. Our company cannot afford that right now.


    Please let me know if you found a loophole or got advice.
    I dont know how to face our employees at the end of this wage month.
    They dont understand. All they see is more money being deducted.
    The turnover of unskilled workers in the aircon trade is high and most of the guys will never claim their funds.

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    they are going to expect you to increase their wages to cover it...this is what happened to me...and if you dont they go slow etc etc...thats why all i can say is thank goodness i down scaled (got rid of the lot) and went the technology route...rather than labour intensive...i now only have myself and 1labourer...no more labour hearings


    i feel for you because you need staff to carry out services and installations.

  3. #13
    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Amber_jo View Post
    We, as the employer, do not mind at all paying our half of the prescribed fees. If you have employees these fees are to be incurred.
    Personally I'd rather be paying it to the employees who were part of making it to spend as they see fit.
    Quote Originally Posted by Amber_jo View Post
    Times are hard. Not many people can afford to save anymore. And now they are literally forcing them. So maybe they wont have enough food this month or be able to afford enough nappies or doctors visits but yippy, they will have a provident fund. This is their money!!!
    One of the core issues, obvioulsy.
    Quote Originally Posted by Amber_jo View Post
    Everywhere I turn to, all I hear is I will have to find a labour law specialist. Our company cannot afford that right now.
    And there is also the possibility of losing the case...

    I'll haul out the notes I made at the time and give some more details, but the gist as I recall is it's going to take some pretty concerted action to put an end to this. I originally started the thread to guage how much support there might be to effect some change on the issue.

    I'd assumed interest was low by the lack of replies. But looking at the page views... I had no idea this thread was getting this much attention.

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    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    Something I should have asked earlier:

    Amber - as an airconditioning company, why are you being forced to join the electrical contractors bargaining council?

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    The dogmatic "bargaining" council of the Western Cape

    I would like to appeal to all that have either posted in this forum or interested parties to unite and challenge the Bargaining Council. We intend to seek legal advice to institute a class action so that the costs can be shared across the parties with an end to getting a ruling that SME and ME do not have to register with the Bargaining Council.

    Our company has been instructed to implement the wage increase, we appealed and submitted financial data and highlighted that there is a recession at the moment. Most of our staff currently are on rates that are above the new minimum wage determination. We also consulted with our staff and offered to halt retrenchments and short time if unanimous agreement was reached to freeze wages until the turn around comes. The Bargaining Council has heard our application and replied with a letter stating that we are unsuccessful as they deem that our financial position does not warrant this (they can always make an offer to the shareholders if they think they can profit out of our business) as we have not shown a profit since last year.

    It is clearly evident that the only reason that the increases have been ordered is to continue the growth of annual revenue of the Bargaining Council, and that if not implemented they would not receive their own increases in earnings. They need a reality check as companies are closing down due to the current economic climate.

    1. We don’t accept that the Bargaining Council has achieved its 50% membership within the scope of the Labour relations Act.
    2. We also do not agree that the ECA can represent our company as we are not members.
    3. We intend to defend our actions in court and are in the process of seeking legal council.
    4. We want the Minister of Labour to table a newly revised amendment to the relevant Acts to enable smaller businesses to compete with the large organisations insofar as labour relations.


    If the big electrical companies benefit from this type of closed negotiation then the law should make membership voluntary to the Bargaining Council. If the electrical workforce finds this in there favour then they will migrate to the larger companies and us smaller companies will be forced to pay higher rates to secure our part of the work force. Effort should rather be given to tighten the laws around who completes electrical work and the subsequent issuing of the COCs and the lack of issue by unscrupulous contractors.

    Dave, I would appreciate very much if you could make any data available from your previous delving in this subject and your comment thereon.

  6. #16
    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    Hi Gerald,

    Good on you, mate. I'll get to making a more structured post soon, but in the meantime:
    Quote Originally Posted by Gerald View Post
    We don’t accept that the Bargaining Council has achieved its 50% membership within the scope of the Labour relations Act.
    The relevant section of the LRA reads:
    32. (3) A collective agreement may not be extended in terms of subsection (2) unless the Minister is satisfied that-

    (b) the majority of all the employees who, upon extension of the collective agreement, will fall within the scope of the agreement, are members of the trade unions that are parties to the bargaining council;

    (c) the members of the employers' organisations that are parties to the bargaining council will, upon the extension of the collective agreement, be found to employ the majority of all the employees who fall within the scope of the collective agreement;
    Now it is quite possible that the 50%+1 requirement is not met, either on the union or the employer side, or perhaps even both. But have you thought how to collect the hard evidence that will be needed to prove this?

  7. #17
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    one way would be to get the ECA to surrender information...problem is they also get their little cut from the bargaining council.

  8. #18
    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    I wouldn't rely on the ECA or the bargaining council to be particularly transparent with the numbers. You see, it's not just a breakdown of the numbers they've got - what you might have to look at is the numbers they don't have too.

    It gets worse - even if you can prove that there are no longer sufficient numbers to justify extension of the collective agreement to non-parties, you still have to rely on the whim of the minister to have the extension withdrawn.
    32. (5) Despite subsection (3)(b) and (c), the Minister may extend a collective agreement in terms of subsection (2) if –

    (a) the parties to the bargaining council are sufficiently representative within the registered scope of the bargaining council; and

    (b) the Minister is satisfied that failure to extend the agreement may undermine collective bargaining at sectoral level or in the public service as a whole
    Now given the fondness our Minister of Labour has for collective bargaining, I don't like the chances if we have to rely on his interpretation of the merits. Those chances might have improved slightly of late, though.

  9. #19
    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    The quick, simple solution

    Ultimately it is unified action that stands a reasonable chance of quick, relatively painless results. Individual action is going to be worn down with threats and BS just as it has been all along so far.

    If we rely on the LRA as it currently stands, (admittedly anecdotal) evidence suggests that organised labour doesn't have the numbers it needs, but the ECA does. So it is the presence of the ECA that is keeping this alive.

    Hence the easiest way to see the demise of the extension to non-parties (and perhaps the collective agreement itself) is for:
    • the members of the ECA to pass a resolution instructing the ECA to withdraw as a party to collective bargaining and the collective agreement, or
    • for sufficient members of the ECA to resign from the ECA to severely reduce the ECA % representation of the industry.

    I don't know about the prospects of a resolution. The top leadership certainly seems more pro the bargaining council than against it, even if I have yet to hear a convincing argument from any of them as to why it should be maintained. But I suspect the start of a mass resignation based on dissatisfaction with the bargaining council might nudge this in the right direction

    (If anyone would like to put down these supposed benefits to employers in writing, I'll be quite happy to put a counter view.)

    Of course organised labour is likely to respond with industrial action, but apparently there was an organised labour strike during the negotiation process last year. I haven't met a person yet who particularly noticed.

    Maybe the companies with majority unionised staff need to stay in the system. But why the majority of companies should accept being dictated to like this is beyond me.
    Last edited by Dave A; 14-Jul-09 at 07:33 PM.

  10. #20
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    at least my visit to the bargaiining council today was a huge success for past fees and future payments

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