LETTER: Job seekers’ exemption a way to unlock jobs

Unemployment is the biggest threat to peace and security in SA, and the overriding challenge facing us is that the government does not listen to the voices of the unemployed, but only to those who are detached from the conditions faced by the  jobless.

We see official reports mentioning 7-million unemployed people in SA, but that figure is probably higher from our assessment. We are speaking of mass unemployment in a country where unemployment should be close to zero. The only people who should be unemployed are those who do not want to work or cannot work.

I ask myself how the politicians of this country sleep at night when they have presided over a system that has resulted in this shocking situation. I am aware of the recent looting that occurred across Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. I do not condone it as crime has no place in our country. But the hungry and homeless should not have to turn to crime to survive. And I understand that poverty can lead to crime; when you are hungry and have no prospects of earning money to put food on your table, crime can be seen as the only option.

We need to find lasting solutions. If we are to ensure a better rate of employment, the country needs a thriving economy. If the unemployed want jobs, we have a role to play in ensuring the survival of businesses that create those job opportunities. We, employees, must also work with businesses to find better ways of ensuring jobs. As such we have constantly appealed to the government to release the unemployed and willing employers from the shackles of the country’s labour laws.

We are hungry and poor because SA’s labour laws take away our right to decide for ourselves what level of wages and conditions of employment we are prepared to accept. Our potential employers’ hands are tied too, as the labour law in certain instances punishes them if they decide to employ us. It does not allow employers to make agreements with us directly around issues such as paying less than the minimum wage, longer working hours and notice if we are not getting on well together.

But there is a simple solution we believe will rapidly reduce unemployment if it is adopted: a Job Seekers Exemption Certificate (JSEC). This is a legal document that could release long-term unemployed people from the shackles of the labour laws without affecting the protection these laws give to the employed.

Our view is that with a JSEC an unemployed person should be able to ask anyone for a job and be free to enter a contract with a prospective employer on any wage and any conditions of employment they are happy to accept. The JSEC should be valid for at least two years to give the holder time to change jobs easily, gain skills and build up a work record.

We want the government to write the JSEC into law. Our laws should not make a working relationship so costly that employers are overly careful about employing people, to the detriment of those who need and want to be employed.

We need jobs. We need jobs to keep hunger at bay, to keep our families clothed, housed and fed. Jobs ensure survival and security. And they protect our dignity, to which we have an inalienable right.

Xolile Mpini
CEO, Langeberg Unemployed Forum

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