Bargaining Council Enforcing Unlawful Agreement

INDUSTRY ALERT

MEIBC
BARGAINING COUNCIL ENFORCING
UNLAWFUL AGREEMENT

Dear Industry Employer

NEASA recently issued a circular informing employers within the scope of the MEIBC that the Labour Court has set aside the extension of the 2014/17 Main Collective Agreement to non-parties.

The effect of this judgement is that employers who did not sign the Agreement, all employers not affiliated to SEIFSA, are not bound by this Agreement – and never were.

Despite this, we have received information that the MEIBC has instructed its agents to continue enforcing this unlawful Agreement on employers not affiliated to any employer party to the MEIBC. It would seem that the MEIBC is hopeful that these employers, due to their non-affiliation, would be unaware of the state of affairs and would therefore be able to mislead them as to the nature of their obligations.

MEIBC agents are currently only entitled to investigate compliance with the Pension- or Provident fund and the Sick Pay fund.

All other agreements have either been set aside or have expired.

Should an agent wish to inspect any other records apart from those mentioned above or wish to interview employees, non-party employers will be fully within their rights to refuse such requests.

We invite employers to report the name of the MEIBC agent concerned to us.

Non-members who have queries in this regard may contact their regional NEASA office.

Regards

Jaco Swart
National Collective Bargaining Co-ordinator