by Thabang Mokotong and Stanley Mohapi

Our “protectors” are again at work. Trade unions and others have persuaded the government to introduce minimum wage laws for domestic workers and farm workers. These laws, together with other excessive “protective” labour laws are causing mass unemployment. We have pleaded with the government not to do such things but they have ignored our pleas.

Is it not bad enough for 40% of the workers of our country to be unemployed? Minimum wages will add to that number. You must not count only those that lose their jobs. You must also count those that will not get jobs because of the minimum wage laws. Does our government want a world record for unemployment?

We are not economists but we see what happens on the ground when minimum wages are introduced. Our organisation, the Malamulela Social Movement for the Unemployed, was recently called to Louis Trichardt to assist people who were being made unemployed. As had been reported in the press, trade unionists were targeting employers that were paying less than the minimum wage and reporting them to the Department of Labour. Workers were being advised that they should stop work immediately because they were being exploited.

We did not find one worker who did not want to keep working for lower wages rather than have no job at all. They all said that their lives were better with a low paid job than with no job. They asked if the government wanted them to let their families starve. At least with a low wage they could feed their families. We were able to arrange for some domestic workers to go back to work at the same wage they had previously received. However, most employers were too afraid of the labour laws and said they would do their own housework rather than risk being prosecuted and that they could not afford to pay the higher minimum wages.

Louis Trichardt becomes the tip of the iceberg when the law is applied to all the farms and towns and cities in the country. South Africa will experience even greater unemployment. We are talking about thousands more people who will be denied the opportunity to put bread on the table for their families. We are talking about a crime against humanity. The members of our organisation do not know how the fat cats who motivate and make these laws are able to sleep at night. Are they totally unaware of the pain and misery they cause to people who are living in shacks in Orange Farm, Gugulethu and townships everywhere?

What motivates the supporters of such harmful laws? If they had any concern at all for the unemployed and unskilled they would not persist in causing harm on such a vast scale. So what is their intention? The answer is simple: their intention is to improve conditions for trade union members (what we call the labour aristocracy) without regard for the harm they cause to the unemployed and the unskilled workers. Through such efforts the union officials wish to increase their own personal power and the politicians hope to gain greater political support from trade union members. Politicians and trade unionists seem to believe that the victims of this process are unimportant. However, they should think again. Will the trade union members continue to have no concern for the harm that is being done to their less fortunate brothers and sisters?

Malamulela has asked government over and over again to allow the unemployed to decide for themselves what working conditions and what wages will be acceptable to them. It is not for the government or the trade unions to decide such matters. It is for the people who are suffering from the indignity, poverty and hunger caused by unemployment.

Many employers will employ the unemployed if they will not be prosecuted for employing them on less favourable conditions than those demanded by our labour laws. So the laws are saying to the unemployed that they will forever remain unemployed because they are not allowed to work under conditions below the platform set by government and the trade unions. And employers are being told that they will be severely punished if they listen to the pleas of the unemployed when they say: “Give me a job, any job, just give me a start so I can show you what I can do. My children are hungry and I must have money to buy food. I don’t want handouts. I want to work for my family. Pay me what you can afford.” And the employer has to say: “I am sorry but the law does not allow it.” And later: “Go away, I told you I am not allowed to employ you on the basis you are describing! Go and ask the Department of Labour, they will explain it to you!”

The labour laws are doing to the black unemployed what the 1913 Land Act did to the independent black farmers. Sol Plaatjie recorded how the Land Act made it illegal for white farmers to sell their land to black farmers, let their land to black farmers, or farm in partnership with black farmers. So the law targeted the white farmers and imposed heavy penalties on those who would otherwise have continued to do business with black farmers, thereby forcing them to comply. This strategy forced blacks out of farming for almost a hundred years.

Our labour law conditions have similar consequences for millions of mostly black unemployed. The laws target the employers. They make employers afraid to employ people, just as the Land Acts made white farmers afraid to enter into partnerships or let their land to black farmers. The penalties faced by employers are too great for them to ignore. Employers now slam their doors in the faces of unemployed and unskilled people who would otherwise be welcome in their firms, just as farmers in 1913 slammed their doors in the faces of black farmers who, except for the law, would have been welcome on their farms. We are convinced that if Sol Plaatjie was alive today he would oppose the labour laws with the same passion that he opposed the Land Act.

We appeal to President Mbeki and the nation to end this unnecessary suffering. Make them stop targeting the employers. Make them stop preventing employers from giving jobs to the millions of unemployed. Make them stop imposing conditions that make good people afraid to employ the most disadvantaged members of our society. Make them stop causing more unemployment with minimum wage laws. For the sake of our families, for the sake of our children, for God’s sake, make them stop.

Thabang Mokotong is the President and Stanley Mohapi is the General Secretary of the Malamulela Social Movement for the Unemployed

December 2002