Cape Town - The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) says it is concerned that some private security companies are refusing to pay service providers’ benefits.
As reported by the SABC News, the union says that this resulted in over 30 000 security guards being unable to access medical insurance and other benefits.
The union’s spokesperson, Phakamile Hlubi-Majola, told the SABC that companies are deducting money from workers, but refusing to pay service providers.
“We are talking about at least R50m of deductions which had not being paid over, according to some of the investigations that had taken place around the issue, but it could actually be higher because there are hundreds of thousands of security guards who are not registered.
“What you have in South Africa is that you've got the bargaining council for security guards, but there are still hundreds and thousands of security guards who are not formally registered as part of the bargaining council.
“It is completely unfair because these are lowest paid workers and it is quite disgraceful that these employers would deduct this money from their workers, but they won’t pay it over to the service provider,” she said.
Hlubi-Majola said there was a signed agreement at the bargaining council where the union was able to secure benefits like medical insurance, and they are supposed to get a pension or provident fund, but payments have not been made.
“This is quite disgraceful because the majority of these companies are companies that are even contracted to the government and some of them are quite big. They simply just refuse to comply with the law.
“It's basically fraud if you are going to take money and keep it to yourself not paying over you are stealing and it is affecting these employees,” she said.
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