COSATU spokesperson, Sizwe Pamla: “With decent work, everyone – workers, employers and the economy – can emerge as winners”

COSATU spokesperson, Sizwe Pamla: “With decent work, everyone – workers, employers and the economy – can emerge as winners”

Some 27 per cent of South Africa’s workforce is informal, working in sectors as varied as hairdressing, domestic work and mining.

(Alamy/Brendan Bishop)

The informal sector makes up a significant portion of the South African economy, with estimates ranging from 6 to 18 per cent depending on the sector. Some 27 per cent of the South African workforce is informal, a total of over three million workers, according to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). In terms of non-agricultural employment, 36.84 per cent of all working women are employed in the informal sector, some 1.3 million as domestic workers. It is also well documented that informal workers have been hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic due to their loss of incomes and jobs, and lack of access to social protection.

In a country with one of the highest levels of unemployment in the world, an official unemployment rate of 34.4 per cent in 2021, formalising the informal sector is a vital but formidable task. The progressive labour laws that organised labour helped to negotiate at the end of apartheid only covers those in full-time employment, leaving the vast majority of workers to fall outside of the scope of labour protections. As a result, the implementation of the International Labour Organization (ILO)’s Recommendation 204 (R204) on formalizing the informal economy provides a crucial framework to help governments, employers and workers’ organisations tackle decent work deficits in South Africa.

Equal Times spoke to Sizwe Pamla, the national spokesperson of COSATU about what the implementation of R204 looks like in South Africa as the world struggles to emerge from the ever-deepening inequality and socio-economic instability caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

Can you give us a brief overview of the informal economy in South Africa?

The informal economy in South Africa includes food outlets, street vendors, barber shops and saloons, furniture shops, tuck shops, domestic workers and mine workers, as well as other examples. It is, however, worrisome to note that despite efforts by trade unions to organise the sector, it remains largely disorderly, with limited state protection. Gender discrimination is also high as the country’s labour market is more favourable to men than it is to women.

 

R204 was adopted by the ILO in 2015. How has COSATU gone about implementing it?

COSATU understands the important role that policymakers play in implementing R204. So we had to ensure that the government intervened, which gave us the confidence to lobby for policies in support of the programme. But it was not smooth sailing: some of these policymakers had no idea what R204 was about while others could not see its importance. That’s why COSATU has been campaigning so strongly for a new developmental growth path to take us out of the economy we inherited from colonialism and apartheid, and to build one based on manufacturing and the development of a skilled, well-paid labour force.

There have been some successes. Some informal workers across a number of sectors have already become more organised, with structures and representatives in place. These include the South Africa Informal Traders Alliance (SAITA), the South African Waste Pickers Association (SAWPA) and the South African Domestic Service and Allied Workers Union (SADSAWU), to mention but a few. The formation of these organisations has helped to ensure improved coordination and collaboration. However, the vast majority of informal workers are not organised in unions and this makes them vulnerable to many different kinds of exploitation and oppression. Getting informal sector workers organised is the crucial first step in the successful implementation of R204. It is, however, a challenge for COSATU to start organising workers who often have no fixed employer or workplace, including those who are nominally ‘self-employed’ but who are often just as poor and exploited [Editor’s note: more information about the work COSATU is doing to defend the rights of vulnerable workers can be found here]. It is a task that we have been working on closely with civil society organisations.

 

What role has social dialogue played?

As a labour movement, COSATU ensured that there was a preeminent forum for social dialogue (via NEDLAC, the National Economic Development and Labour Council) between the government, labour, business and the community, and we included all of these voices during the R204 consultative forums. We tried to find each other as we engaged, compared and reconciled notes. This gave us direction and helped us understand the issue from everyone’s perspective. Thereafter, we were able to try and implement the programme from a collective point of view. As a labour union, we at COSATU emphasise the importance of decent work, as a scenario where everyone – including workers, businesses and the economy – can emerge as winners. We have always lobbied to make the government understand that decent work is the only sustainable way to accelerate the growth of production and employment, to increase the pace of poverty reduction, and to build genuine democracy and social cohesion in South Africa.

 

What other organisations did you work with and what value did that add?

Nothing for the people without the people! There are civic organisations that are involved with some of these informal traders as well as local council leaders, so we also included them in the conversation, to find out the real struggles and needs of informal workers. This made it easier for us when we approached policymakers because we were talking from a deeply informed point of view. I can say that in all provinces, we engaged local councils and civic society organisations as well as other community leaders.

 

What concrete changes has R204 brought about for vulnerable, informal workers?

The implementation of R204 in South Africa is a slow and long-term process, but when it comes to the legal framework that we have developed, we are getting results. For example, we are campaigning to have a National Minimum Wage Act that protects all workers – irrespective of their sectors or categories – from exploitation. Also, the Basic Conditions of Employment Act is supposed to cover all employees whether they are working in the formal or informal economies. Unfortunately there is little capacity within the Department of Labour to monitor compliance. But we have always said to the government that it has no moral legitimacy to demand that informal workers abide by the country’s laws while it continues to disregard them.

One of the other notable achievements so far is that we lobbied the Department of Mines to formalise artisan mining and the department has started supporting these projects, ensuring that old mines do not end up in the hands of criminal gangs. We believe that a steady wage in formal employment would mark a significant improvement in the quality of life of these miners. COSATU also looks forward to Parliament’s passing the Compensation of Injury on Duty Amendment Bill which will extend cover to over 800,000 domestic workers as well as include cover for occupational diseases and post-traumatic stress. This will also benefit mine workers, security personnel and women workers in particular. This is a huge step in providing social protection to informal and vulnerable workers.

 

What are you doing to ensure that women and young girls are not left behind?

Compliance is still a problem when it comes to gender inclusivity. COSATU challenges the status quo which has left most women employed in or occupying the most vulnerable and the lowest-paid jobs. Even in the formal sector we struggle to make sure that women and young girls are represented. Much more needs to be done though, considering that there are more women than men in the country’s informal sector. It is also important to note that women are more likely than men to be involved in unpaid work.

 

What impact has the Covid-19 pandemic had on the implementation of R204 in South Africa?

The pandemic has been a huge setback in general. In particular, the crisis has highlighted the vulnerability of millions of workers in the informal sector and the lack of social protection that covers them. Women and informal economy workers have been more adversely exposed to the harsh socio-economic effects that this global health crisis has thrown up. In Africa as a continent, before the outbreak, almost half of the population lived below the poverty line and more than 140 million people were low-income workers who did not have the means to sustainably meet the needs of their families.

This situation has only worsened and the hardship of workers and their families continues. Consequently, the Covid-19 crisis has uncovered the huge decent work deficits that still prevail in 2021. The R204 programme in South Africa was also impacted in the wake of difficulties that were faced by informal traders. Vendors at taxi ranks and train stations lost the majority of their customers as fewer people were commuting to work. Hair stylists who were no longer allowed to work were left without an income for months. Business owners who could only make a fraction of their pre-Covid-19 pandemic revenues saw a drop in customers and an increase in their costs. All of this resulted in a distressed informal sector and has made things difficult for us.

This article is part of a three-part series, produced within the framework of the five-year partnership programme of Movement for International Solidarity (MIS), co-financed by the Belgian trade union ACLVB-CGSLB and the Belgian Development Cooperation.