THE Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) expected its workload to increase significantly, it said on Monday, as the labour-relations landscape digests a raft of legislation changes.
The dispute resolution commission had received an additional R60m for the current financial year to improve its capacity as it grapples with possible legal challenges to new legislation, including protection for employees and changes that would require more preparation and additional legal understanding from commissioners, CCMA director Nerine Kahn said on Monday.
The CCMA had planned for the legislative changes, which have been delayed by wrangling in the National Economic, Development and Labour Council and Parliament.
While being praised for successes in its role and its accessibility, the commission has faced criticism over the years for its poor human-resources capacity.
The commission’s staff had undergone extensive training, a new specialist class of commissioners had been established and funding was expected to be "more than adequate", with an option to turn to the National Treasury for any additional allocations when needed, Ms Kahn said.
In the past six months amendments to three key pieces of labour legislation have been signed into law, including the Basic Conditions of Employment Act in September, the Employment Equity Act in August, and the Labour Relations Act this month.
The new Labour Relations Act came into effect on the first day of this month, the Employment Equity Act at the end of August and the Basic Conditions of Employment Act at the end of September.
The changes limit the use of temporary employment services — commonly known as labour brokers — to three months, and give more power to minority unions to strike in support of demands for organisational rights.
An amendment to retrenchment practice makes it more difficult for employers to amend the terms and conditions of employment in any restructuring, giving more power to the employee to refuse new job requirements in the face of being dismissed.
Changes in the Employment Equity Act include a clause that specifies that unequal pay for equal work is unfair discrimination, while the CCMA — rather than the courts — has been given automatic jurisdiction when an employee earns less than R205,000 a year.
Ms Kahn said that changes to the Employment Equity Act had seen almost a doubling of complaints about unfair discrimination — to 410 since August — which, however, remained low in the South African context and in terms of the total number of complaints received by the commission.
The previous system had "cost a lot of money and was not very user friendly", and the CCMA believed there was still widespread misunderstanding of the grounds for employees to lay complaints, she said.
The CCMA would seek to improve education about issues of unfair discrimination as it expected to take three or four years to make some changes clear.
"I think the law will be challenged quite a bit," Ms Kahn said.
Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said the federation would continue to seek meetings with the CCMA and the labour minister to improve the capacity for dispute resolution.
Cosatu would ensure it was prepared for changes as some aspects, such as temporary employment services, were a "complicated set of legislation that requires a lot of legal interpretation", he said.
Labour lawyer Andrew Levy said there would be legal challenges.
With equal work for equal pay as an example, he said there were few people with a background and experience in this field.
"I think there will be a great deal of review work."
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