Following apartheid, South Africa has instituted extensive labor laws.  You can spin it either way you like: “comprehensive labor protections” or laws which create a “rigid labor market.”  I don’t pretend to know all the labor laws.  Instead I hear stories from people about how the laws play out.  And granted, much of what I hear is complaining from one side: the side of the employer.   The labor laws are permeating the most informal relationships- for example, the relationship between a nanny and a small child- and rearranging what has been the “natural order” of the labor market in this country.  Sometimes with unintended consequences.

What I wonder about the following story is: 1.  What communication exists between the workers and the employer?  No doubt there is a huge power differential.  2.  How have small businesses have been affected by the labor laws?  Formalizing relationships and adding vacation, over-time, and pensions seems like it would eliminate many part-time informal work. 

A bowling club in upper-middle class Jo’burg suburbia employs two groundskeepers (black, lower class).  A few years back, the club decided to write new contracts with the groundskeepers to be compliant with new labor laws.  Working hours were established, Saturday pay and a half, holiday double-pay, vacation, pensions, and a 4% pay raise.  Recently the groundskeepers went to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration (CCMA) to complain that they weren’t being paid enough.  The CCMA found that their compensation was more than generous and proceeded no further.  The consequences: the groundskeepers then had to pay R500 for the consultation, not to mention the ill-will which was generated in the workplace.

Last week I heard a similar story about a domestic worker who took her employer to the CCMA because she didn’t understand that the employer had put her pension in an interest-bearing account.