ADVANCING EQUITY, DEVELOPING SKILLS, CREATING ECONOMIC
OPPORTUNITIESFOR ALL AND EXTENDING SERVICES
Black Economic Empowerment
Labour is supporting the development of co-operatives as an
important form of BEE, and is participating in the development of
sector transformation and monitoring mechanisms.
Government is implementing the Broad-based BEE Bill.
Employment Equity
All constituencies launched a joint campaign to raise awareness
of the Employment Equity Act in 2003. Plans are already underway
for a similar campaign in 2004. The Department of Labour launched
Technical Assistance Guidelines (TAG) on the Employment of People
with Disabilities in November 2003. Workshops and training
programmes in provinces are currently under way to educate people
about the TAG on the Employment of People with Disabilities.
The Department of Minerals and Energy (DME) initiated a Mining
Executive Preparation Programme specifically aimed at addressing
the needs of historically disadvantaged South Africans and runs a
bursary scheme for scarce skills. In 2003 152 university and
technikon students were awarded bursaries.
Promoting literacy
The constituencies agreed to work through the SETAs to achieve a
target of 70% of workers having at least literacy and numeracy to
grade 9 by March 2005.
Labour is going to call a conference of all its SETA
representatives in June, and literacy will be one of the issues on
the agenda.
Business is also arranging a workshop with all its SETA
representatives. Affiliates have been asked to communicate with
their members with regards to promoting literacy, and will be
developing performance indicators for reporting.
The Mining Qualifications Authority has received a R25 million
grant to incentivise employers who enroll ABET 4 learners during
2003/4/5.
Learnerships
Government reports that by September 2003 there were 23 843
young unemployed people in learnerships and a further 22 055 people
in apprenticeships - giving a total of 45 898 young people in such
programmes. In order to achieve the target of 72 000 by May 2004, a
further 26 102 learnership places therefore needed to be
secured.
Business has informed their affiliates of the need to meet the
agreed targets, and arranged a workshop with business
representatives on SETAs to discuss ways of doing so. Labour has
been working on developing a joint marketing campaign with the
Department of Labour on promoting learnerships.
Some of the new initiatives government has put in place to meet
the targets include:
- The Northern Cape Provincial government has placed 2000
learners in government departments;
- The Ethekwini municipality is to take on 5000 young people in
partnership with Chamber of Commerce;
- Various government departments are co-ordinating 2840 Community
Development Workers through learnerships;
- Employment and Skills Development Lead Employer initiatives are
soon to be launched with 20 pilot agencies with a potential of 11
000 learners.
Strengthening the SETAs
A Nedlac task team has been established and one of the functions
is to look at SETA governance. Both labour and business are taking
a number of practical steps to improve their representation and to
strengthen the functioning of SETAs, including holding workshops
with their representatives.
Education
Labour, business and community agreed to encourage their local
structures to support orphans and very poor children in getting
school uniforms and other school materials.
Labour and business are both preparing communications materials
to support this agreement. Government is committed to ensuring that
all schools have access to basic services, and to improving access
to free and basic education.
Government will also monitor overall school fees relative to
household income and continue to prepare a pamphlet annually on the
rights and responsibilities of school-going learners.
Access to basic services
The GDS covered a number of agreements to help poor households
to access basic services; to review the housing programme; to raise
awareness of grants and to discuss the extension of the social
protection framework. Labour has reported that it will communicate
with affiliates and develop an informational leaflet on the issue
of social grants.
Government has a number of initiatives in place, including:
Housing
The medium density housing programme, currently under
development, aims to support urban renewal, densification and
socio-economic integration by providing grant funding for the
development of three to four story (monthly rental) walk up
apartments, targeted at low income earners, on centrally located
land.
The social housing policy, provides for the establishment,
funding and regulation of social housing institutions, which will
develop and manage the medium density housing stock. These
programmes will contribute towards increasing urban density and
efficiencies.
The Housing Department is currently investigating possible ways
of achieving enhanced integration and coordination through new
programmes, including the enhancement of the Human Settlement
Redevelopment Programme.
Grants
Government approved the extension of the child support grant to
children up to their 14th birthday. The programme is being phased
in over a three year period and the implementation has been
successful thus far. A total of 664 191 eligible children were put
in payment by the end of November 2003.
Extending social assistance
A new Social Assistance Bill and the South African Social
Security Agency Bill were introduced into Parliament in the 2003
session. These pieces of legislation will first provide for a
national legislative framework for social assistance and then for
the establishment of the Agency.
Discussions on a Comprehensive Framework for social protection,
includinga social wage and social grant issues, are still to take
place at Nedlac.