The ANC, whose record on addressing unemployment has been woeful, is now considering a measure which will make it much worse. Proposals are being debated in the Parliamentary portfolio committee on labour for labour broking to be curtailed or even banned altogether. If this happens, unemployment levels, already calamitous, would increase significantly. And the unemployed would find it harder and harder to get the jobs that are actually available.

Labour brokers are simply employment agents for temporary jobs. The Labour Relations Act refers to them as "Temporary Employment Services", and in Section 198 sets out the law as it pertains to their activities. They provide a service in introducing a prospective employee to a prospective employer. They supply labour to both the private and public sector. Neither employers nor work-seekers are forced to use them. However, many choose to use labour brokers. Job-seekers want to find out what temporary jobs are available without having to walk from enterprise to enterprise or from farm to farm in order to find out. And employers can find the most appropriate people available to fill the positions available.

The role of labour brokers in the labour market is comparable with the role of Spar or Shoprite in the food market. When you need to buy grapes or maize, you don't want to travel to various farms to buy each item. So you go to a shop, which buys them from the farmer, which offers you the opportunity to make a choice, and you pay the shop for its service, for acting as a middle man.

Labour brokers typically supply labour for factory maintenance shut-downs, construction, temporary clerical positions and seasonal farming jobs. They may supply unskilled or highly skilled workers, for example in Information Technology. They allow employers more flexibility in their planning and provide relief from their administrative load involved in hiring temporary workers. They provide transport and communications for workers in remote areas who would be unable on their own to travel to every prospective employer on farms or in factories.

The key point is that labour brokers help workers to find jobs. Most of these people would otherwise not have jobs.

With breathtaking disregard for reality and pitiless contempt for the plight of the unemployed, Lumka Yengeni, ANC chairperson of recent public hearings on labour broking, stated that these brokers are "slave traders" and "human traffickers".

After two days of public hearings on labour broking at parliament last week, the ANC is divided on the subject but there are ominous signs that ideologues within it might be pushing it towards restricting labour broking or banning it altogether. The Minister of Labour, Membathisi Mdladlana says that "labour broking is a form of human trafficking". The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) wants to end labour broking. The Minister of Higher Education, Blade Nzimande, who is also head of the Communist Party, agrees, saying that labour brokers are "modern-day slave owners". (Comrade Nzimande earns over R2 million a year in his two jobs and drives a new 7-Series BMW costing over R1 million, provided by the tax-payer.)

However, Gwede Mantashe, ANC General Secretary, said in May, "it will be very reckless of any leader of the ANC to go on an election campaign and say that we will ban labour brokers". South African Airways, owned by the state, uses nine labour brokers, including Phumelelo, Kelly and NT Ngidi. The Minister of Public Enterprises explained that "Temporary Labour is used for projects during peak periods and seasons" and that it "gives SAA flexibility to optimise its workforce utilization in order to meet operational needs."

There is undoubtedly abuse in labour broking. Sometimes this is because of plain exploitation and sometimes because of the poverty and lack of means of the broker, for example the inability to provide transport for labourers from the Eastern Cape to the Western Cape. But labour broking is fully covered by existing labour law and the abuse results simply from failure to implement the law. There are not enough inspectors and often the inspectors refuse to go to the rural areas. Laws and regulations currently exist to prevent abuse. If abuse exists the Department of Labour can enforce the law which it is currently failing to do. Because of its own lack of capacity, it must find a scapegoat, and cause millions more people to face unemployment.

Restricting or banning labour broking would not end the abuse. On the contrary, it would increase it. It would drive the underground brokers even further underground.

Why has there been an increase in labour broking? There is not a single, simple answer to this question. But part of this answer is the restrictive nature of existing labour law for permanent employment. Existing law is so onerous and expensive that small and medium employers are often too scared to employ labour. Existing labour law makes it very difficult for workers, especially poor workers, to get jobs. Labour broking, to some extent, eases the restrictions. It offers a degree of flexibility.

Consider the three groups that make up the labour pool in the South African economy: the permanently employed, the temporarily employed and the unemployed. If labour broking were successfully banned, it would not mean that the temporarily employed would get permanent jobs ("decent jobs") with pension schemes and annual holidays. It would mean that they would be thrown into unemployment, with hunger and humiliation.

Statistics from "private employment agencies" show that they provide employment for over 400,000 people daily, who have 4.6 million dependents. 83% Are black and 50% are previously employed. Each year 32% of the temporary workers become permanent workers. The Temporary Employment Services facilitate about 40,000 learnerships. So the labour brokers are not only providing temporary jobs, but offering opportunities for full time jobs and for training.

In this debate there is a voice that is unheard, the voice of the jobless. Ask those without a job whether they would be prepared to take a job on specific terms. If they say "yes", what right has anybody else to tell them "no"? Their choice is often not between a permanent job and a temporary job. It is between a temporary job and no job.

Too many senior ANC politicians seem to occupy two worlds. In the real world they are rich and privileged, driving BMWs and living in mansions. In the imaginary world they are working class heroes. In the real world, South Africa has dreadful poverty and unemployment that can only be solved by taking difficult decisions and by making our economy more open and efficient. In the imaginary world of the ANC MP, all our problems can easily be solved by shouting a revolutionary slogan, by denouncing a class enemy and by making an ideological gesture. Scrapping labour broking is exactly such a gesture. It would cause more unemployment but it would satisfy the egos of the ideologues.

The DA sees unemployment as one of South Africa's most terrible problems. Our sympathy lies entirely with the jobless and we want every civilised measure to be used to give them jobs. Of course we wish to avoid bad practice and exploitation, but this will not happen through banning labour broking. Quite the contrary. Therefore we support labour broking and agree with the Minister of Public Enterprises that it provides flexibility in the labour market.

To prevent exploitation of temporary workers, the DA calls for a mandatory register of labour brokers, lodged with the Department of Labour. There should be a statutory Institute of Labour Brokers, checking that its members comply with labour law. It should be bound by a code of ethics.

Unemployment is a cancer in South African society. It behoves us all, including politicians, to treat it with reason and compassion, and not with empty political gestures.

This article by Helen Zille first appeared in SA Today, the weekly online newsletter of the leader of the Democratic Alliance, September 4 2009

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