A new initiative by the Department of Labour (DOL) should boost the training of unemployed learners.
The DOL has set up 21 Employment and Skills Development Lead Employer Agencies (ESDLEs) that will employ unemployed learners and pay them between R120 to R200 per week while they are completing year-long learnerships.
One such ESDLE, the Automotive Industry Development Centre, is working closely with the manufacturing sectoral training authority, the Merseta, the Seta that covers most of Numsa’s members.
The AIDC is currently finalising plans for its first pilot project to train 300 unemployed learners in engineering related skills in the Gauteng area.
To apply for one of these learnerships, all unemployed learners must have matric certificates and have done maths and science up until matric.
S’thabiso Madondo, AIDC co-ordinator of the ESDLE for the Merseta, advises all interested unemployed people in Gauteng with these qualifications to register their names with the nearest Department of Labour centre.
If you are unemployed, register your name now!
If you are unemployed and are interested in doing a learnership make sure you go to your nearest Department of Labour centre. Ask to speak to the employment services practitioner and request them to put you on their data base for work-seekers and the unemployed.
The DOL will choose the learners from the register of unemployed people at the labour centres.
The AIDC will help to place the learners in a college and at a host employer so that they can gain work experience.
The pilot project will train unemployed learners at NQF level 1 and 2.
“Once the pilot is completed, we will expand to take those that are unemployed that have at least standard 8 with maths and science,” says Madondo.
Learners will be able to study from NQF level 1 right up to 5.
With government having set itself a target of 80 000 learners in learnerships by March 2005, “It’s a big challenge,” says Madondo!
Multiplying its numbers
Faced with the decision of last year’s Central Committee’s which said that the Northern Cape region must recruit more members or ‘be closed’, the region set itself a “vigorous recruitment programme which we fought for every organiser to strictly implement,” says regional secretary, Elias Mashiloane.
Although one of the smallest Numsa regions in numbers, it covers one of the largest areas but because of its numbers has only one organiser in each of its three locals.
It spreads from Harrismith in the south east right up to Upington and Pofadder in the north west . Each local can cover an area twice the size of Gauteng with small pockets of potential union members in each small rural town.
To deal with these small pockets, the region set up small committees in sub-locals. For example, the local office in the south of the region is Welkom but there are also sub-locals in Harrismith, Qwa Qwa and Bethlehem .
Most membership was recruited in Bethlehem , Qwa Qwa and Harrismith sub-locals where 2528 members were recruited in five months, expanding their membership to more than 4000 from just 1900.
Sub-locals set up meetings for members and “asked them to invite non-members as well,” says deputy chairperson, Sechaba Malinga, and shop steward at Bergview One-Stop in Harrismith.
“There we told members of the benefits, how the structures of Numsa work, the basic rights that workers have at work.”
Malinga says that they found white workers that were also willing to join. “They are also exploited the same as black workers. They don’t have medical aid, they don’t have annual leave, maternity leave – they just work. They work unfixed hours without overtime pay.”
Some had previously joined the union, Samu, but “they were not assisted in any way. Now we are trying to make white members feel at home in Numsa.”
In September, Malinga, who is also in charge of overall recruitment in the region, will go to Kim berley to increase its numbers. Contact him on 072 239 2493.