Klerksdorp Midweek, Klerksdorp - Just as employees have rights and entitlements, employers have obligations and duties in the Agricultural Sector. The Department of Employment and Labour in North West in partnership with the CCMA hosted a seminar on compliance with the labour laws on Saturday September 28. The Department of Employment and Labour Inspection and Enforcement Services (IES) branch Director, Dr Pravine Naidoo told stakeholders during an Agricultural worker’s seminar that while workers should enjoy their rights and entitlements in the workplaces, employers also have an obligation and duty to comply with labour legislation.
Naidoo said the seminar was held to ensure that employment laws are understood. “Workers should understand their hard fought labour rights. The gathering today is about mainstreaming awareness of worker benefits with regards to their rights and duties in the workplaces, and in regard to employers it is about mainstreaming their obligations and duties to labour legislations.”
He said the reason why the Department chose the Agricultural sector for advocacy was because it has been identified as vulnerable in the South African economy.
The seminar, targeting multi stakeholders in the Agricultural Sector was held under the theme: “Paying the National Minimum Wage is the right thing to do”. It was held at Protea Hotel in Klerksdorp.
Naidoo said the farmworkers were identified as vulnerable in South Africa, because “there is lot of abuses on the farms, non-compliance to legislation and farmworkers do not understand their rights”.
“In many occasions farmers do not understand our legislation. Some of them do understand our legislation, but choose not to comply. As a department we have decided to adopt a programmatic approach not only in North West, but nationally focusing on this sector.’’
He said workers are still not enjoying the fruits of changed legislation.
The seminar focused on the National Minimum Wage Act (NMWA), Unemployment Insurance Act (UIA), Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act (COIDA) and referral of disputes to CCMA.
The objective of the seminar was to bridge the information distribution gap between employers, employees, orga-nised labour and business in the Agricultural Sector.
