Today's Labour News

newsThis news aggregator site highlights South African labour news from a wide range of internet and print sources. Each posting has a synopsis of the source article, together with a link or reference to the original. Postings cover the range of labour related matters from industrial relations to generalist human resources.

Last Update: 08-08-2025

farming thumb medium80 84The New Age reports that the trial of a Limpopo farmer accused of abusing and underpaying 300 Zimbabwean farm workers whom he allegedly owed more than R1.6m in respect of the past 10 years has been thrown out of court after witnesses failed to show up.

The 36 witnesses were deported to Zimbabwe at the beginning of the trial late in 2015 because they had no documents, while others were taken off the witness list when they returned to work for the farmer.

The farmer, JT van der Walt, the owner of Johannesburg farm in the Lephalale area, and nine of his managers were charged by the police for the assault and kidnapping of the Zimbabweans.

The Department of Home Affairs had also opened a case against him for employing illegal immigrants, while the Department of Labour had also filed another charge of labour exploitation.

Limpopo labour spokesperson Lerato Makomene confirmed the case had been dismissed.  “The case was thrown out of court because there were no witnesses.  Our hands are tied as a department without the witnesses,” Makomene indicated.

A worker representative, Thembani Ndlovu, said they had lost touch with some key witnesses now thought to be in Zimbabwe.  “It was difficult to locate the witnesses who went back to Zimbabwe because they were undocumented.  Some of the witnesses moved to other towns because they couldn’t stay here without jobs.  So the case could not go ahead,” Ndlovu said.

The plan was to have the workers paid through the Zimbabwe consulate as soon as the matter was finalised.  However, Zimbabwe consul general Henry Mukonoweshuro said some of the workers had returned to work for the farmer because they were under pressure.

“”We had the numbers and we had said we would assist to track them down, but we are not aware of this development,” Mukonoweshuro stated.

Most of the workers had been employed at the farm for more than 10 years.  Van der Walt farms maize, tomatoes, onions and potatoes.

Ndlovu claimed that the farmer forced them to work from 5am to 11pm and paid them R70 instead of the government stipulated R103 for an eight-hour shift per day.

The original of this report is on page 2 of The New Age of 10 January 2017


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suninternationalSunday Times reports that three cleaners at Sun City claim they were made to strip naked after guests alleged that R6,000 had been stolen from their unit at the resort's Vacation Club apartments on New Year's Day.

A tearful Doreen Motaung, 50, told the Sunday Times she felt humiliated and violated.  "I have been working here for 12 years with a clean record but what happened to me on New Year's Day will haunt me for the rest of my life.  I was forced to expose myself in front of a young [female] security guard who is almost the same age as my child," she said.

However, Sun City claims the women voluntarily undressed during a pat-down in privacy.  "[A strip-search] would have been contrary to Sun International's policy," said spokesman Michael Farr.

Motaung said the guests who accused Basetsana Molote, Bertah Moswane and herself of theft also verbally abused them using racial slurs.  "I am so traumatised and I can't sleep at night," she stated.

Moswane, who cleaned the guests' rooms on New Year's Day, said they were in the room while she cleaned.  "They gave me R10 as a tip and asked me to tell Doreen, who had cleaned their room a day before, to come for her tip."  Motaung said she went to the unit, where the guests offered her a Coke and gave her R20.  Then they asked who else had cleaned the room because money had gone missing.

She said there were about 10 guests in the two-bedroom unit.

Security officers were called and Moswane and Molote, who had been working on the same floor, were summoned.  The women said a row then broke out.

"They [the guests] accused us of stealing money from their room, saying black people are thieves," said Moswane, 33, who has been working at Sun City for eight years and has never before been accused of theft.

Molote, 37, who has worked at Sun City for five years, said she was traumatised by the verbal abuse.  "The guests were swearing at us, calling us names like 'f***ing bitches'.  One of them claimed she was a magistrate and that she was going to send us to jail for10 years."

The women said they were taken to a bathroom in the unit and searched.  Moswane said she was stripped naked and forced to squat.  "The door was wide open.  Some of the guests saw us naked.  What they did to us is inhumane and a gross violation of our rights.  I resisted when the guard told me to strip.  She even forced me to bend after taking off my panties."  She said the security guard told them she had received "strict instructions from above" to strip them.  "Doreen and I went to the police on Wednesday to submit additional statements."

North West police spokesman Brigadier Sabata Mokgwabone confirmed police were investigating a case of crimen injuria.

Farr said an internal investigation was underway.  "Our security service provider has told us that the three ladies in question were not asked to strip.  [They) were requested, one at a time, to accompany a female security officer into a bathroom for a standard pat-down search.  "Regrettably, two of the ladies decided … of their own accord to remove their clothes immediately while the other lady, upon entering the bathroom, asked if she should take off her clothes and was told not to by the female security officer.  Despite this, the lady elected to unbutton her blouse."

Farr said the alleged theft was reported to the police and that Sun City's group surveillance and security manager was conducting an internal investigation into all elements of the matter, including the use of polygraph technology.

"No money was found to be in the possession of the three ladies.  We do not know if the guests, highly agitated at the time, apologised to the three ladies," Farr said.

The original of this report by Mzilikazi Wa Afrika is on page 9 of Sunday Times of 8 January 2017


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amcu thumb medium80 81Business Report writes that the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), the biggest union in SA’s platinum industry, on Tuesday called for a new commission of inquiry to be set up to find the “real perpetrators” of the Marikana Massacre.

Amcu president Joseph Mathunjwa told journalists in Johannesburg the new commission would help get answers which the Farlam Commission, established by President Jacob Zuma, failed to do find.

The massacre, in which 44 people were killed in violent clashes during an illegal wage strike at Lonmin in mid-August 2012, has been described as the biggest use of lethal force by police on civilians since the Sharpeville killings.

“The Farlam Commission failed to find the real perpetrators of the massacre – those who gave the orders to the ones who pulled the triggers,” Mathunjwa said.

“We demand a commission, facilitated by a credible independent body, to get to the truth of who at the highest levels were responsible for the Marikana Massacre.”

He said the new commission should set out the processes and forms of compensation that could bring about a real and deep process of healing to Lonmin employees and their families.

Mathunjwa’s comments were in response to Zuma’s statement on Sunday during which he gave an update on steps taken to implement recommendations by the Farlam Commission to various government departments.

Zuma said Lonmin’s licence could likely be revoked it did not submit an adequate housing plan.

The decision to break the strike by the heroic Lonmin workers could only have been taken at the highest level

Mathunjwa said Zuma’s threat to revoke Lonmin’s mining right if it did not improve its obligations to improve the lives of its employees would not address working class issues.

“This threat is a knee jerk approach. Lonmin did not start in 2012 not to comply with its housing obligations. Before the massacre who was responsible for not enforcing compliance? I think this is politicking. How many mining houses are not complying with housing obligations?” he asked.

Zuma had said on Sunday that Lonmin, the world’s third biggest platinum producer, had been slow in meeting its housing obligations.

“A compliant housing plan will be requested from Lonmin, failing which immediate action in the form of suspension or cancellation of the mining right will be taken,” he said.

Zuma revealed four police officers faced murder charges, while others faced attempted murder charges for the massacre.

Mathunjwa argued, however, that the decision to charge the police officers was in fact part of government’s plan to find a scapegoat in the form of police officers.

“The decision to break the strike of the heroic Lonmin workers could only have been taken at the highest level of the state.

“Bosses of Lonmin are not facing any accountability for their role in this massacre, when we know they urged the state to intervene, provided logistical support to the police and have failed to hold their managers and directors to account, compensate the victims and address the very causes of the strike, namely the struggle for a living wage and decent living conditions for their workers,” he said.

The original of this report by Dineo Faku is on page 20 of Business Report of 14 December 2016


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samwu thumb medium80 78Sunday Times reports that the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) has been placed under provisional liquidation after failing to pay its former law firm R.2.4-million in outstanding legal bills.

Johannesburg attorney David Maimane brought the application in the High Court in Johannesburg for debt dating back to March.  Samwu cut ties with the firm, KD Maimane, on 3 June.

The union says it will apply for the order to be repealed.  "For the sake of peace we are prepared to pay them their two million," Samwu general secretary Simon Mathe told the Sunday Times on Friday.

Samwu has about180,000 members countrywide, each paying-R65 a month in membership fees.  It is the majority union in the local government sector.

Delivering his ruling on Tuesday, acting judge Daniel Berger said anyone with a "legitimate interest" should give reasons "why this court should not order the final winding up of the respondent on 21 February”.

In his founding affidavit, Maimane said Samwu owed the firm money for legal representation it had provided "to and on behalf of the members and for the respondent upon its instructions".

Maimane said:  "I telephoned the president of [Samwu] to request an urgent meeting to discuss non-payment of the account and other issues.  He indicated that I should contact him after the 3 August local-government elections.  When I did phone him on a number of occasions I was not able to speak with him and I left messages.  He never returned my calls."

On 16 September he [Maimane] received a request from the union asking how much it owed him in total.  He gave the figure but never heard back from it.

Maimane said when he eventually met with the union's leaders, he was told the union was struggling to collect members' contributions from employers.

But Mathe told the Sunday Times the union had only become aware of the court case this week when it was issued with the provisional order.

"We have instructed our attorneys to apply for an urgent rescission of that court order, because we were not aware of the proceedings against us," he said.

Asked why the union had not paid its bills; Mathe said:  "The issue that might have complicated things is that at the office we received a lot of suspicious invoices and we appointed a company to conduct an investigation.  Unfortunately the invoices from [Maimane] were also subject to the forensic investigation.  We cannot pay any amount to anybody before we can satisfy ourselves the invoice is legit."

This report by Siphe Macanda is on page 5 of Sunday Times of 11 December 2016


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numsaBusiness Report writes that the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) yesterday reiterated its rejection for the proposed national minimum wage and also said that it did not support the endorsement of deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa as the next president of the ANC.

In a fiery media briefing in Johannesburg, ahead of its 10th national congress, general secretary Irvin Jim said Numsa was concerned about the country’s grotesque level of inequality. Numsa was expelled from the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) after clashes about policy and ideological trajectory of the tripartite alliance.

Jim said next weeks congress would be an historic opportunity for Numsa members to launch a counter-offensive and to fight for a living minimum wage. He said workers would oppose any limitation on the right of workers to strike, take forward the campaign for a new workers’ federation and proclaim the birth of the new revolutionary workers’ party.

“The Cosatu leadership has colluded with the ANC neo-liberal government around the national minimum wage. Numsa regards Cyril Ramaphosa’s proposal for R3 500 a month as a legitimisation of slavery wages, which would leave millions in poverty, but safeguard the interests of the exploiting capitalist class,” Jim said.

“The pathetic proposed R3 500 minimum wage will do virtually nothing to improve this lack of income for millions of South Africans, especially in those households where nobody has a job.

“An inevitable consequence of these levels of unemployment is that employed workers will have more unemployed family members to support from their meagre wages.”

Jim also said that Numsa would not be campaigning for President Jacob Zuma to resign. He said the union had already made this call three years ago because of the Zuma administration’s pursuit of neo-liberal policies such as the National Development Plan, e-tolls, labour brokers, and the youth wage subsidy.

Numsa will be holding its 10th National Congress from December 12 to 15 in Cape Town. – ANA

The original of this report by Siphelele Dludla is on page 25 of Business Report of 8 December 2016


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