Department of Labour
The department of labour intends investigating the feasibility of extending the scope of civil engineering sectoral determination 2 to cover the building and construction industries.
This announcement was made terms of section 52(3) of Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997 and can be found in notice 60 of Government Gazette 34980 dated 27 January 2012.
The notice also announces the department’s intention to conduct a review of basic conditions of employment and minimum wages in the sector.
Interested parties have been invited to submit written representations on the issues entailed within 60 days of the date on which the notice was published.
Currently, according to sectoral determination 2, the civil engineering sector applies to employers (other than local authorities) and employees “associated for the purpose of carrying out work of a civil engineering character”.
Inter alia, such work includes “one or more of the following activities”:
• the construction of aerodrome runways or aprons; aqueducts; bins or bunkers; bridges; cable ducts; caissons; rafts or other marine structures; canals; cooling, water or other towers; dams; docks; harbours; quays or wharves; earthworks; encasements; housings or supports for plant, machinery or equipment; factory or works chimneys; filter beds; land or sea defence works; mine headgear; pipelines; piers; railways; reservoirs; river works; roads or streets; sewerage works; sewers; shafts or tunnels; silos; sports fields or grounds; swimming baths; viaducts or water treatment plants;
• excavation work or the construction of foundations, lift shafts, piling, retaining walls, stairwells, underground parking garages or other underground structures;
• the asphalting, concreting, gravelling, levelling or paving of parking areas, pavements, roads, streets, aerodrome runways or aprons, premises or sites; and
• related activities “incidental to or consequent of” any of the above, including:
- making, repairing, checking or overhauling tools, vehicles, plant, machinery or equipment; and
- work undertaken “in connection with the erection of structures having the general character of buildings ... irrespective of whether or not such work involves problems of a civil engineering character”.
Under the existing determination, the term ‘civil engineering sector’ also applies to “any work falling within the scope of the iron, steel, engineering and metallurgical industries” as defined in the main agreement of the bargaining council concerned.
Sabinet Cape Town Office
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