The R500m budget cut at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) has plunged the statutory body for aggrieved employees into a crisis. It is now allegedly outsourcing its dispute referral system to corner stores and internet cafes.
The Casual Workers Advice Office (CWAO) which is part of the “Open CCMA Campaign”, an initiative of 40 organisations including workers’ forums, NGOs and community organisations, said the budget cuts had decreased the CCMA’s capacity to deliver basic services.
The CWAO said security guards, touts and con artists have been exploiting workers with inquiries and charging up to R900 to make copies of and complete dispute referral forms.
The CCMA did not respond to a request for comment.
The cash-strapped CCMA, which processes more than 200,000 cases a year involving unfair dismissals, wage disputes and retrenchments, has had its budget of R1bn cut by R99m, with steeper cuts of R170m and R231m pencilled in over the next two years of the medium-term expenditure framework.
From April 1 2020 to December 31 2020, the CCMA said it received 985 large-scale referrals compared to 555 in the same period in 2019, implying a bigger workload needing more resources, not cuts.
CCMA director Cameron Morajane told the Cosatu collective bargaining conference in November that the commission’s finances were so dire that it resolved to stop doing conciliation and would instead go straight to arbitration.
The commission, which is also focused on resolving labour disputes, has stopped hosting its annual CCMA labour conference and the shop-stewards and union officials conference, due to budget cuts.
CWAO tweeted last week: “Want to know what the [CCMA] budget cuts mean? Today we found that the CCMA Benoni has effectively outsourced its dispute referral system to a corner store/internet cafe. Workers now pay R10 at the internet cafe to refer a case online. It is next door to the CCMA!”
Open CCMA Campaign spokesperson Harry May said the CCMA responded on March 11 saying it would have “no alternative but to take further action necessary against CWAO” for defamation should the tweet not be removed within seven days.
The post remains active.
“The irony of the CCMA’s legal threat is that the real situation facing workers is much worse than revealed in the tweet,” said May.
He said after spending days outside the CCMA offices in Benoni and Johannesburg last week, they were able to establish that:
- The only support the CCMA provides to workers unaware it has shut its walk-in facilities is an e-mail address where disputes and queries must be referred;
- In Benoni a CCMA administrator directs workers to an adjoining internet cafe where they are expected to pay R10 for a dispute referral form, R20 for support with completing the form and a further R30 for e-mailing the completed form to employers and the CCMA, right next door;
- At the Johannesburg CCMA office, security guards charge workers for forms and then direct them to an internet cafe to refer a case where they pay an additional fee;
- Also at Johannesburg, touts and con artists charge workers up to R900 to complete dispute referral forms;
- The touts coax workers into agreements whereby workers pay 50% of settlements to them. The CCMA, probably aware of the long-standing activities of the touts, has done little to stop the practice. Closure of its walk-in facilities now makes workers more susceptible to the touts while the CCMA continues to turn a blind eye to their actions;
- Completed forms seen by the CWAO, including condonation applications, were incorrectly filled in by the touts and by the security guards, severely prejudicing workers’ rights.
May said the Open CCMA Campaign has called for the immediate full reopening of the CCMA, including walk-in facilities and part-time commissioners hearing cases, and an increase in the budget of the CCMA to meet its growing caseload.
It also wants the immediate appointment of more full-time commissioners, “even if this means cutting the R4m annual salary of the CCMA director”.
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