"Our most immediate target [...] is to ensure that we develop labour legislation that can effectively ban labour brokers, because we believe that labour brokers cannot coexist with the country's overarching objective to create decent jobs," said Dlamini.
The federation has sought a dispensation with legislation that would help narrow the "apartheid wage gap", Dlamini said. Trade union National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) said at the summit that banning labour brokers was one way to achieve this, adding that the government should cut interest rates and bring back capital controls. "This will go a long way to creating employment and jobs in the country as people with money will invest in productive sectors of the economy," said Numsa secretary general Irvin Jim.
Jim said the government should devalue the rand, describing it as the "overvalued currency". In addition, government should put a tax on short-term capital inflow, as the macroeconomic policies put in place after 1994 did not work. Government cannot continue with macroeconomic frameworks that are not working. It is time for government to be bold and intervene. "Gear (growth, employment and redistribution) did not work," Jim said, adding that post-1994 policies had laid the basis for accelerated deindustrialisation and job losses.
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