Chairperson, the Minister of Labour, hon members, I will deal with three areas in this Budget debate. I will add to the area of labour broking and outsourcing, the CCMA and the Setas. We understand and appreciate the fact that Nedlac is facilitating a meeting that has to take place next month around the issue of labour broking. But I must say, whereas labour broking is regulated in terms of section 198 of the Labour Relations Act, the reality of the matter is that labour brokers attempt to be employers, but employers who do not own workplaces.
This process leads to a situation where even certain sections of the Labour Relations Act cannot be applicable to labour broker employees. This is because when trade unions intend to have meetings for purposes of recruiting and reporting back to members, they cannot do so as the primary employer will say that those employees are not employees of the primary employer but of the secondary employer, who might have offices somewhere else and not in the workplace itself.
Labour broking and outsourcing, in our view, do not contribute to the decent work we are talking about. This is because labour brokers do not conform to the standards of labour that exist.
Let me go on to the CCMA. While the CCMA's annual report of 2007-08 reflected progress in its plan known as the Tsoso Strategy, there are still challenges. These challenges are not favourable to ordinary workers who do not have trade unions for representations. Most employers go to the CCMA and they have legal representation as the law allows them to make such requests. But this becomes a disadvantage to ordinary workers who do not have resources to have legal representation.
The other challenge in this public utility is that which the hon Yengeni spoke about: the issue of jurisdiction by the CCMA particularly when attending to matters that have been referred by unions or individuals who are employed by labour brokers in particular. Primary employers refuse to be made respondents to such cases. This is the one area that needs to be visited because it makes workers vulnerable.
The other area is the service of interpreters. Sign language is one service that is not adequate when it comes to labour matters. This is an issue that we believe the CCMA, whilst it does good work in certain areas, needs to address.
I think it is important to draw a distinction between processes of the Labour Court and processes of the CCMA, because the Labour Court is within the competency of the judicial Ministry and not the CCMA. Once an issue is out of the CCMA, it goes to the Labour Court. Then the CCMA and the Department of Labour do not have anything to do with that. I think maybe the Minister needs to do something to ensure that members, particularly in this committee, understand the relationship between these public utilities.
The last point I would like to speak about is the Setas. In a way of protecting current jobs, we take it that it is important that Setas are expected to dirty their hands by determining trends of production processes in advance, because that will enable the Setas to identify areas of upskilling in the process.
Furthermore, partnerships between Setas and science and technology are important because science and technology does determine the forms of equipment that need to be used in production processes. Therefore, the interventions and partnerships of Setas will assist in terms of developing a programme that will not result in a situation where workers lose their jobs as a result of the installation of new technology.