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Wednesday, 06 March 2019 12:37

The Star reports that thousands of disgruntled Tiso Blackstar staff may soon embark on national strike action following a decision on Monday by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) to grant them a certificate to picket.

The workers are unhappy about the non-payment of bonuses to certain units in the media group, which owns The Sunday Times, Business Day, Sowetan, Daily Dispatch and Financial Mail.

Last month, an internal memorandum sent to senior management was leaked after the group’s non-payment of bonuses.

Employees then sought representation from the Information Communication Technology Union (ICTU), which approached the CCMA.  On Monday, the union members were granted permission to strike.

Tiso Blackstar managing director of media, Andy Gill, said the company did award bonuses to divisions that met the criteria, as well as awarding discretionary bonuses to top performers.

Gill said the union had yet to issue a notice to strike.

ICTU deputy president Origenius Mogoatlhe told The Star the logistics of the strike hadn’t been worked out.

“The company did confirm that they made a profit but they haven’t engaged employees about the bonuses that they deserve,” he said.

Mogoatlhe added that the workers were demanding 25% of the total cost to company with regard to the profit that the company made.

Gill noted:  “We remain committed to constructively engage with our employees on this and any other matter that may arise.”

The union was still strategising for the strike and would not inform the media when it intended to start the action.

The original of this report appeared on page 3 of The Star of 6 March 2019

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Wednesday, 27 February 2019 12:43

Sowetan reports that ministers and deputy ministers will be breaking the law if they leave behind big staff complements in government departments when they are reshuffled or fired.

This new law, gazetted by public service and administration minister Ayanda Dlodlo this month, seeks to reduce the size of the bloated civil service. Ministers and deputy ministers are allowed to have 10 and six personal staff members respectively in their office but many of them violated this rule.

And when ministers are axed or removed from their positions, they insist that their personal staff remain in the civil service and earn from the public coffers even though they usually do not have a job function.

Dlodlo’s spokesperson Mava Scott said the new law “stops ministers from saying come hell or high water my staff will be absorbed in the department”.

“There has been a problem for quite some time where ministers leave staff in departments and it becomes a bloated structure,” he said. Scott said some ministers leave as many as 12 people who are transferred to the department from the ministry, further stretching the public purse.

“This law ensures when you leave, your staff leaves too and their term is linked to the political term of office,” he said.

Dlodlo felt the effects of this in her own department when her predecessor Faith Muthambi irregularly appointed 27 people, including friends and relatives, and left many of them behind in the department – working without functions.

The effect of this law is likely to be felt after the elections when the size of the executive is expected to be slashed and many ministers and deputy ministers will be sent packing. Mava said ministers will no longer be able to dictate to departments who should be hired.

Dlodlo has been on the warpath against some of her cabinet colleagues, saying their bloated offices often lead to an unsustainable civil service. Finance minister Tito Mboweni last week introduced measures to trim the public sector wage bill by R27bn over the next three years.

The original of this report by Qaanitah Hunter appeared on page 4 of Sowetan of 27 February 2019

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Tuesday, 26 February 2019 07:47

BL Premium reports that a high wage bill and low productivity at South32’s Hillside aluminium smelter have led the diversified miner to start a retrenchment process which could affect up to 500 jobs.

This comes at a difficult time for SA’s steel industry, which has been haemorrhaging jobs in recent years, losing 8,000 in 2018 alone.

Speaking to Business Day on Monday, COO Mike Fraser said the Richards Bay smelter had “burnt quite a lot of cash” in the six months ended December. Absolute salary levels on site are “very high” while productivity is “too low” compared to the rest of the world, he said.

South32 was spun out of BHP Billiton in 2015.

The aluminium smelting industry is highly competitive, margins are relatively thin and the majority of costs are outside of a company’s control, Fraser said. Labour costs at Hillside, however, account for about 50% of what the South32 deemed “controllable costs”.

“Over 20 years we’ve probably bent over backwards to avoid any kind of industrial action. I think we just bought ourselves peace,” the COO said. “Unless we do something to reset that, we are going to be in difficulty as a business.”

The Section 189 consultation process, as required in terms of the Labour Relations Act, was launched on Monday last week.

Trade union Solidarity said the restructuring process at the smelter appeared highly complex.  “South32 is embarking on extremely complex restructuring process which will involve retrenchments, reorganisation and salary adjustments at the same time. They intend to achieve those three goals by means of one process, which is going to be a difficult task,” deputy general secretary Marius Croucamp said in a statement.

Aside from the restructuring, another matter which is key to the smelter’s sustainability is the renegotiation of a power supply contract with Eskom.

Eskom’s legacy contracts with BHP smelters have been controversial because they were linked to the aluminium price and so caused Eskom to incur large losses when the commodity price was low. Even so, BHP closed its Bayside smelter down in 2014 due to ongoing financial pressure.

South32 wants to renegotiate the contract for Hillside before it expires, ostensibly in 2022, but is yet to obtain clarity from Eskom which is dealing with an operational and financial crisis.

The smelter consumes 1300MW of continuous power and South32 has said a good power contract is needed to ensure Hillside’s sustainability.

Without the smelter, about 29,000 direct jobs are at stake, Fraser said.

Hillside supplies 120,000 tons of liquid metal to the Isizinda project at Bayside and provides material to aluminium supplier, Hulamin.

“Without Hillside we don’t have Isizinda, we don’t have Hulamin and there would also be a further impact on the local customers of Hulamin which then supply into the motor industry,” said Fraser.

“We’ve estimated there’s around 29,000 direct jobs that are dependent on Hillside’s sustainability, because you would actually lose that entire chain.”

Croucamp also expressed concern over the general state of the SA steel industry and the 8,000 jobs lost in 2018, according to the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa.

South32 is meanwhile progressing well with the sale of its SA energy coal business and expects to have binding bids on the table by the end of June this year.

The original of this report by Lisa Steyn appeared at BusinessLive

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Monday, 25 February 2019 06:18

Sowetan reports that a civic organisation has called on the Gauteng government to hire more staff member s at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital (Bara) or face the wrath of the masses.

On Thursday, members of the SA National Civic Organisation (Sanco) held a peaceful protest outside the hospital in Diepkloof, Soweto, in support of the plight of hospital staff.

Provincial Sanco chairperson Chris Malatjane said they were there because the department continued to ignore requests to resolve problems at the hospital.  “We are saying to government, this must come to an end.  We want to see doctors and nurses hired in numbers.  We want to see more security,” Malatjane said.

He said Bara needed a bigger budget as it also provided academic training and healthcare for people from the SADC region.  He added that it was disturbing that people were dying at the facility because doctors were overworked.

Marchers held up placards with messages of support and demands.

Sanco deputy chairperson in the Johannesburg region, Phashe Magagane, read out the memorandum, giving the department 14 days to respond.

Magagane said they would mobilise all their branches to engage in a massive protest action should the department fail to resolve the issues.

“There should be an increase in the number of doc- tors, nurses, cleaners and porters in this hospital. We demand adequate medication to be supplied in this hospital,” Magagane said.

The same issues were raised during previous protests organised by labour unions, who called on government to save the facility from falling apart.

Pastor Paseka Mboro, who was among those supporting the protest, said staff needed the support of communities.

“People die in their hands because they are short-staffed. They are not well looked after. We must protest for them. We must be their mouthpiece.”

Head of hospital services in the province Dr Medupi Modisane received the memorandum on behalf of MEC Gwen Ramokgopa.

The original of this report by Zoë Mahopo appeared on page 12 of Sowetan of 22 February 2019

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Monday, 25 February 2019 04:56

The Sunday Independent reports that the impasse between the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) and the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) at colleges continues as the strike over salaries and working conditions enters its second week.

On Friday, some technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges and community education and training (CET) colleges in Soweto were empty, with only a skeleton staff and a few students on the premises while the department said it remained committed to finding a solution to issues raised by the union.

This comes after talks between Higher Education Minister Naledi Pandor and union leaders broke down earlier in the week when Nehawu demanded that the director-general, Gwebinkundla Qonde, not be part of the meeting.

Among the union’s demands is the removal of Qonde, the transfer of all college-paid lecturers into the government pay system, employing lecturers on a permanent basis and better working conditions.

The union accused Qonde of being unwilling to transform the sector and of blocking every effort to address grievances since 2015.

A student at a South West Gauteng college in Soweto, who identified herself as Nonhlanhla, said she had not attended class since the start of the week.

“Yes, I want to attend class but it comes with understanding some of the issues raised by our lecturers.  I will come and sit here, but who is going to teach me? It’s better I stay at home until they tell us that the strike is over,” she said.

Lecturers initially fell under the Department of Basic Education but were later migrated to Higher Education and Training.  The union has long fought for the migration to be completed, the payment of benefits such as pension funds and medical aid, and the normalization of working hours.

Some lecturers earn below the minimum wage and have been on contract for years.

A lecturer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he had lost hope that the situation would be rectified.  “It’s been years of the same conditions, when Basic Education couldn’t solve our problems.  They threw us to Higher Education and now it is just playing us for fools.  How many meetings must happen before someone understands you can’t give us fancy titles and treat us worse than miners?”

The lecturer said he reported for duty only to sign the register and go back home.

Meanwhile, the union said while it was committed to resolving the impasse, the department had to create an environment that is conducive to proper discussions.  “We don’t want them to have the arrogance of thinking they can deduct our pay for a strike that is their fault to begin with.  Until such time, I am not prepared to teach anybody. Never,” the lecturer said.

Nehawu also accused Qonde of using court interdicts to intimidate its members, adding that it would explore legal avenues as part of its efforts to find relief for its members.

The original of this report by Lerato Diale appeared on page 4 of The Sunday Independent of 24 February 2019

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