Private security industry seeks own bargaining council

The private security industry has asked for its own bargaining council, which would possibly bring one of SA’s largest sources of employment into the statutory central bargaining system. Fin24 reports that while this new council might help root out the security industry’s infamous ‘compliance problems’ around wages and benefits, the primary motive is to maintain the extraordinary ‘normal’ hours of work in the sector, said Tony Botes, national administrator of the Security Association of SA (Sasa). Sasa is an employer group representing 75 companies with 140 000 guards. It made the application for a bargaining council, which was published recently in the Government Gazette, and is supported by another employer group, the SA National Security Employers’ Association, as well as 18 unions.