This 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
The Citizen reports that firefighters who survived the tragic Bank Of Lisbon fire in September this year were nearly trapped and burned to death because the fire-escape was blocked by a magnetic security gate, their accounts of the event have suggested.
According to firemen Livhuwani Maumela and Moleko Bereng, who were hospitalised for more than two months following the tragic event, what began as a mission to kill the blaze became a desperate fight for survival as flames engulfed them.
Bereng, who was leading the firefighters and had found the “seat of the fire” on the 24th floor, said things took a turn for the worse when he realised not only could they not find a connection to water, access to the fire-escape was also restricted.
He had to keep his team from panicking.
“We found that there is nothing (no water) and then the escape exit is a magnetic access control. So, it seems no one can enter there, only the person with access control,” said Bereng.
“I was trying to calm the others guys down – they were all panicking.” He eventually found a window to break.
This was the floor from which firefighter Simphiwe Maropane, 24, fell to his death.
Maumela and Bereng sustained severe burns to their hands and underwent skin grafting. They said extreme heat forced them to remove their gloves because in their struggle for finding water they had to block fire with their hands.
“We ran out of water and that was when the fire was raging even more. The building was burning so much we didn’t know what to do.
“It was like if a policeman goes to a shoot-out without a gun. Or if a policeman has a gun with no bullets. Our bullet is water.”
The two firefighters were discharged from hospital yesterday – an event the City of Joburg marked with a guard of honour featuring some of their team-members from the blaze.
During the press briefing, officials were quick to stop the two men from going into more details of how they were injured and who they blamed for their ordeal and the deaths of their colleagues.
They reminded them that investigations into the blaze are still pending.
While the city’s investigation was not dependent on that of other authorities, community safety MMC Michael Sun said his office would be working with the South African Police Service and had plans to meet and compare notes.
“We, as the City of Joburg will be conducting our own investigation. “I personally follow up on the progress of the investigation results regularly.
“We are hoping that in the next few months the investigation will have concluded and we will be able to report back the findings to know what exactly caused the fire and what really fuelled the fire to such an extent it burned for two days,” said Sun.
Meanwhile the completion of the police investigation would determine the commencement of a “full” investigation by Gauteng authorities, said Premier David Makhura’s spokesperson, Thabo Masebe.
He said their investigation was into the structural integrity of the building and would lead to a decision on whether to demolish the building or repair it. –
It was like a policeman going to a shootout without a gun.
The original of this report by Simnikiwe Hlatshaneni appeared on page 2 of The Citizen of 13 November 2018
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The Star reports that more than three years after resolving to consider insourcing several key functions, the government has finally appointed a service provider to conduct an independent impact study into outsourcing and use of agents for some of its employees.
The Regen Group will conduct research into the number of outsourcing contracts that each national and provincial government department has entered into between 2014 and last year.
According to the Department of Public Service and Administration, cleaning, catering, security, gardening and laundry services are among the job categories that will be the focus of the review.
The resolution to review outsourcing was taken at the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC) in February 2015.
Parties to the bargaining council had wanted the review to be conducted and a report presented within six months after the resolution was signed.
Government departments have until next Friday to submit the information required for the independent impact study.
In terms of the resolution, the PSCBC also wanted to find out the extent of wastage and corruption related to the awarding of tenders and payments made to private companies for their services compared to when these functions and services were performed by the government.
The review will find out the number of private companies that benefited as a result of outsourcing.
It wants details of the pitfalls and successes of outsourcing including costs savings recorded as a result of outsourcing, the number of jobs lost and created in each department and the value of the contracts.
The department wants information on the conditions of service of former state employees employed by private service providers due to outsourcing and its impact on the government’s empowerment agenda.
The review of outsourcing and use of agents follows the City of Johannesburg’s decision to start in-sourcing hundreds of security guards earlier this year.
In May, the National Assembly’s portfolio committee on economic development recommended that ministers, directors-general and heads of departments ensure that the Competition Commission utilise its allocated funds to speed up the training and upskilling of existing personnel and recruiting requisite skills to end the need for outsourcing and report on progress bi-annually.
The Joburg Municipality hopes to hire nearly 4 000 security guards through insourcing, increasing their remuneration and benefits while costing the city no more than what has been spent on over 100 security contracts for about R700 million a year.
The original of this report by Loyiso Sidimba appeared on page 11 of The Star of 7 October 2018
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City Press reports that beneficiaries of a multibillion-rand employee trust are fighting in court for it to be dissolved owing to concerns about a lack of transparency and because it is allegedly not benefiting them.
Ukhamba Trust, an employee benefit scheme set up in 1998 for employees of automotive and logistics company Imperial, is being taken to court by a group of the trust’s beneficiaries. The trust has 15 553 beneficiaries.
According to Oshy Tugendhaft, the lawyer representing the trust, from law firm Tugendhaft Wapnick Banchetti and Partners, Imperial provided initial capital of R15 million for the creation of Ukhamba.
Acting on behalf of 1 100 beneficiaries in the matter, which is before the Johannesburg High Court, Reuben Malabela, one of beneficiaries, has filed court documents, of which City Press has copies, that apply to the court to dissolve the trust and distribute the money held therein.
The trust owns a 10.1% stake in Imperial and holds funds worth more than R2 billion, according to Malabela.
“We want the trust dissolved because the beneficiaries are not benefiting. The trust has been amended several times without the knowledge of the beneficiaries and they were never given a chance to elect their representative among the trustees.
“There are also a lot of people who were left out even though they were employees of Imperial and there was never a reason given for that,” he said.
“Another issue is that a lot of beneficiaries have since died and their next of kin were never alerted of the trust benefits even though we are told they employed a tracing company, but no one was ever traced,” he said, adding that only employees employed before March 2004 qualified for the shares according to the trust deed.
Ukhamba Holdings is an investment holding company whose shareholders are the Ukhamba Trust, which owns 47.1%; Imperial, which owns a 46.9% stake; with the remaining 6% belonging to the Ukhamba Community Development Trust.
According to Tugendhaft, there was nothing untoward about the trust.
Tugendhaft lambasted Malabela and said his assertion that the trust had ensured that most of the legal representations the beneficiaries sought always ultimately decided against continuing with the matter, allegedly after being coerced by the trust.
“This is an absurd and defamatory allegation that is devoid of truth. Our client is not aware of any other lawyers whom, it is alleged, represented any beneficiaries,” he said.
He also pointed out that Malabela has instituted an application to review and set aside the decision in the arbitration.
“When our client was initially approached by Mr Malabela, it established that of the beneficiaries he claimed to represent, all had been paid their dividends due to them and the majority had elected to dispose of their ‘A’ shares,” he added.
Tugendhaft said the beneficiaries of the trust received their units in the trust from Imperial for free and the company also issued Imperial deferred shares to Ukhamba for free.
Companies use deferred shares as part of employee compensation plans.
The deferred Imperial shares convert to ordinary Imperial shares in annual tranches, Tugendhaft said.
About 15 056 029 Imperial shares have been converted and the remaining deferred shares would convert in equal tranches each year until 2025, up to a total of 21 million Imperial shares.
The main underlying asset of the trust is represented by its 47.1% shareholding in Ukhamba, comprising the ordinary shares and deferred shares in Imperial.
“In 2013, in response to beneficiaries wishing to realise their interest in the trust, Ukhamba created an A share that is representative of the underlying Imperial ordinary shares and Imperial deferred shares, which A share was listed on a trading platform and can be traded,” Tugendhaft said.
“There are 6 483 beneficiaries, who have retained their A shares, since the remaining
9 070 beneficiaries elected to dispose of their shares, once the A shares were listed in 2013,” he said.
Ukhamba received dividends from the Imperial ordinary shares and then in turn declared and paid dividends to the A shareholders, Tugendhaft said.
“There is a growth in the underlying Imperial deferred shares and the Imperial ordinary shares held by Ukhamba, but that growth is only realised if and when the A shares are sold,” he added.
“The total dividends declared by Ukhamba to its shareholders ... to date ... amount to R850 million, of which the trust received 47.1% – [about] R400 million for its beneficiaries.”
He said the beneficiaries of the trust each received an average R25 485 and at listing each received 1 206 A shares, which, at R25 per share, were worth R30 150 in total.
The original of this report by Lesetja Malope appeared on page 5 of City Press Business of 4 November 2018
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The Star reports that SABC executives have warned that the technically insolvent national public broadcaster could be heading for collapse if it does not cut its wage bill.
This as the organisation announced its plan for massive retrenchments which will see about 981 permanent employees and 1 200 freelancers lose their jobs, a move that has outraged unions and political parties.
Chief executive Madoda Mxakwe said the corporation was so financially troubled that it could no longer fulfil its monthly obligations.
“We are technically insolvent as the SABC. We are not able to fulfil our monthly obligations. The threat of commercial insolvency is indeed increasing significantly,” he said.
Mxakwe said the R3.1 billion wage bill, made up 42% of the R7.2bn total expenditure, was not sustainable, and job cuts would be inevitable even in the face of political opposition.
“The decision that we will take in doing this may not be acceptable but we know that it is in the best interest of the SABC. We have a choice to say, do we do what is right in terms of taking these decisions, or do we let the SABC collapse? This is a very significant institution in our country to let it collapse and we have to do what is right.”
Mxakwe said the broadcaster faced a possibility of being unable to fulfil its public mandate if it was not restructured into a commercially viable organisation.
“In the past three years, the cost of the public mandate has been sitting at R4.2bn, and we have done projections to say in the next few years what would be the cost, and it is sitting at about R6.2bn,” he said.
Group executive for human resources Jonathan Thekiso said a probe into jobs had established duplications of responsibilities, where one permanent staff member was doing a job while three freelancers were hired to do the same job.
The broadcaster is also in the process of recouping more than R6m in irregular expenditure.
Thekiso said the SABC was targeting those who were either appointed (or received salary increments irregularly) by previous executives, including controversial former chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng, who is also being legally pursued.
“There is a legal process happening between the former COO and the organisation and the figure I have seen is around R22m, which is legal costs, and the other figure is R50m, which I believe is a bonus.
“Those numbers may form part of the R60m. We are not going to go into finer details at this point, suffice to say that there are irregularities that we have identified and we are focusing on those,” he said.
The EFF has called for an urgent intervention by Communications Minister Nomvula Mokonyane by giving the SABC a guarantee letter to enable it to secure funds that can save it from retrenching thousands of workers.
The original of this report by Siviwe Feketha appeared on page 11 of The Star of 1 November 2018
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Business Report writes that the millions of South Africans out of work will now pin their hopes on the framework agreed to at the recently concluded Jobs Summit to create employment after the third quarter jobs data showed the unemployment rate at a year high of 27.5 percent.
The third quarter’s jobs print was also the highest jobless rate since the third quarter of 2017 when it was recorded at a 13-year high of 27.7 percent.
The key mining and manufacturing sectors were once again the biggest culprits in the jobs bloodbath, shedding 54 000 jobs between them in the third quarter. The mining sector workforce, which stood at 446,000 at the end of last year’s third quarter, has plunged to 406 000.
In all, the number of unemployed persons rose by 127,000 to 6.2 million in the period, while 92,000 jobs were created in the period, taking the labour force to 16.4 million.
Statistics SA said the country’s unemployment has since 2008 raced from 21.5 percent to almost 28 percent.
“The most affected persons were women and youth. More men (51.4 percent) than women were unemployed in 2018 compared to 2008. However, the percentage of women who were in long-term unemployment was higher than that of men in both 2008 and 2018,” StatsSA said.
The expanded definition of unemployment, including people who have stopped looking for work, rose to 37.3 percent in the quarter from 37.2 percent in the prior quarter.
Earlier this month, Bureau for Economic Research data showed that since the 2009 financial crisis, domestic real gross domestic product growth has underperformed relative to both emerging market peers and average global growth.
The research showed that, under different assumptions regarding post-crisis growth and the elasticity of employment, the economy could have created between 500,000 and 2.5 million more job opportunities over the eight-year period.
The jobs picture looks even bleaker after both the National Treasury and the South African Reserve Bank revised their growth forecast for this year to a pedestrian 0.7 percent – way below the average population growth rate of 1.6 percent.
Lara Hodes, an economist at Investec, said: “In order to see any significant job creation in South Africa, economic growth needs to be ignited, underpinned by effective policy implementation and policy certainty, which are required to restore confidence and enhance the investment climate.”
Stakeholders at the Jobs Summit signed a framework agreement which outlines measures aimed at arresting the tide of unemployment and job losses.
The framework has set a target of creating 275,000 jobs annually over five years.
However, cracks have begun to show in the agreed framework after the country’s major trade union federation Cosatu yesterday said the government was not committed to the framework, particularly taking issue with planned lay-offs at the SABC.
The SABC is looking at letting 982 workers go and cutting 1,200 of its freelance workers.
Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said South Africa had not been able to set itself on a path of people-centred development.
The original of this report by Kabelo Khumalo appeared on page 17 of Business Report on 31 October 2018
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