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19 January, 2011Following the successful strike at BHP Billiton in South Africa late last year, NUMSA has triumphed in meeting worker demands. Amongst the gains has been an important step forward in the battle to ban labour brokers.
South Africa: NUMSA has won an agreement from BHP Billiton to explore ways of phasing out the use of labour brokers. To this end, a task team will take six months to propose models to phase out the used of labour brokers at the multinational's Hillside smelter.
NUMSA has been strategic in its approach to ban labour brokering. It has a firmly established and central place on the unions bargaining agenda and the union has not been afraid to flex its collective bargaining strength to make gains on the issue.
Gains have been made to ban labour brokering at all three bargaining councils on which the union sat last year, for the tyre, motor and auto sectors. In the motor sector a framework to do away with labour brokers is being developed and the union won a ban on labour brokers in the auto sector.
In 2011, NUMSA intends to demand for a ban on the use of labour broker in the engineering sector at bargaining council negotiations. The engineering sector is the union's biggest membership base.
NUMSA's commitment to tackle the issue of labour brokers at plant level is paying off locally and at an international level. Its agreement with multinational BHP Billiton on seeking ways to phase out labour brokers is a massive step forward for labour. IMF hopes this will make positive contributions to addressing precarious work and furthering the decent work agenda at all BHP Billiton worksites.