RATIFIED AT EXCO

ILO Conventions

The International Labour Organisation has developed a number of conventions which it requests member countries to ratify and implement. Following ratification, countries have two years to ensure that their labour legislation complies with the conventions. In South Africa, before Parliament is asked to ratify the conventions, the Department of Labour tables them at Nedlac in order to get a recommendation from business, labour and the community. Nedlac has already recommended that all seven core conventions be ratified, and the current session of Parliament will vote on the remaining two of these. In addition to these, the Executive Council agreed to recommend that Parliament ratify convention 144 on tripartite consultation; recommendation 146 on minimum age, convention 155 on occupational health and safety; convention 174 on the prevention of industrial accidents and convention 176 on safety and health in mines. The Executive Council also agreed that once the core conventions were ratified, a major publicity campaign should be embarked upon to inform South Africans of these conventions.

Demarcations

Demarcation determines which companies are grouped together in an industry or sector for bargaining purposes. The LRA gives Nedlac the task of considering applications to register new councils or to change the scope of existing ones. The Executive Council supported recommendations on demarcation applications with respect to:

• the Bargaining Council for the Furniture Manufacturing Industry of the Eastern Cape;
• the amalgamating Bargaining Council for the Meat Trade, Gauteng; and
• the Building Industry Bargaining Council (Cape of Good Hope).

With regards to the application for registration of a National Bargaining Council for the Chemical Industry, a report was agreed which would be forwarded to the Minister of Labour for a final decision.

New Executive Director

The overall convenors reported that they would be conducting interviews for a new Executive Director during March. It should be the task of the Executive Council to appoint the new Executive Director, but the council agreed to delegate this authority to the management committee in the event of an appointment being possible earlier than the end May meeting of the council.

Nedlac's budget for 1999/2000

The Executive Council approved the 1999/2000 budget. The overall amount stayed virtually the same as in 98/99 - R6,500,00.00 for 1999/2000 as against R6,492,000.00 last year. The amount budgeted for staff in 1999/2000 is less than 50% of the budget and falls slightly from R3,214,580.00 to R3,027,910.00, as there are some vacancies that are unlikely to be filled for the first few months of the financial year. Constituency support remains the same, with R240,000.00 allocated to labour and community respectively, and R120, 000.00 to small business.