‘Cheap labour serves the interests of employers’

While thousands of workers yesterday marked May Day, Sandi Mninawa and Fikile Ndima had no reason to celebrate.

For five years, Mninawa and Ndima worked at a Johannesburg restaurant until they were retrenched during the Covid lockdown in 2020.

When business slowly resumed after the global pandemic, Mninawa and Ndima said they were replaced by “foreign nationals” in their jobs.

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“Due to hardship arising from their African countries of origin, foreign nationals accept anything offered by the employers,” said Mninawa.

“Unlike locals, they are not unionised and may not protest over poor working conditions and low wages. Simply put, it is cheap labour, which serves the interests of employers, who make huge profits.”

The two said they were members of the Casual Workers’ Advice Office, a body that assists unemployed workers and offers them advice.

“We now live on casual work. It helps to have a skill in life, making it easier to be employable, whether on a casual basis,” said Ndima.

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Section 38(1) of the Immigration Act stipulates that business owners are barred from employing undocumented foreign nationals. Failure to comply with the law opens businesses to prosecution, in line with the Labour Relations Act.

According to the Immigration Act, 60% of positions in any workforce should go to South Africans.

However, there has been a growing trend of more jobs in the informal sector going to foreign nationals, due to cheap labour.