Legislation: Final round of hearings on labour Bills

Stakeholders in the three labour Bills now before the NCOP’s Economic and Business Development Committee will have one more opportunity to make their views heard, according to media statements issued yesterday afternoon on each proposed new statute. However, interested and affected parties only have until Friday to make written submissions, notes Pam Saxby for Legalbrief Policy Watch. 

A Department of Labour press release on ‘B’ versions of the National Minimum Wage Bill, Basic Conditions of Employment Amendment Bill and Labour Relations Amendment Bill passed last week by the National Assembly notes that changes made by its Labour Committee not only ‘strengthen the legislation’, but ‘clarify certain aspects’. As Legalbrief Today has regularly reported, together the three Bills seek to give practical effect to agreements reached in the National Economic Development and Labour Council on labour market stability, collective bargaining and the modalities for introducing a minimum wage. The committee media statements make no mention of this, simply inserting each Bill’s long title in otherwise identical notices calling for comment. At the time of writing, a date for the final round of parliamentary hearings had yet to be announced.