Appeals For Regulatory Tenders

The Building Industry Bargaining Council (Cape of Good Hope) recently appealed to key industry sectors within both commercial and governmental sectors to ensure that industry regulations were being adhered to. Speaking at a breakfast function, Chairman of the BIBC, Mr. Wilson Poni, called on key bodies including the providers of finance and those that awarded tenders to the construction industry, to observe the necessity for tenders to be awarded only to compliant and registered contractors. “We would like to thank the industry for compliance and appeal to those who are not yet observing the need to only award tenders to contractors who are following industry regulations, in an attempt to do so to create a culture of compliance within the building industry,” said Mr. Poni.

He went on to remind principal contractors who made use of subcontractors that they have a obligation to ensure that the subcontractor is compliant with the council, and that the liability remained with the contractor in the case of any negligence.

Touching on the issue of industrial action, the industry has been reminded that whilst a number of key industrial sectors throughout South Africa have been plagued by serious strikes over the last few months, which have had a negative effect on production and output, the building sector in Cape Town seems to have been spared widespread disruption, apart from for the contained strikes at the Green Point stadium and the Cape Town International Airport. “We believe that Council has been effective in its function of keeping the industry free from wide spread industrial action, through the implementation of a broad reaching Collective Agreement,” explained Poni.
Poni explained that the Collective Employer associations and unions, that are parties to the Collective Agreement, negotiated at the Bargaining Council, are precluded from any industrial action over matters already agreed upon in the Collective Agreement, which remains effective until 31 October 2010. It is therefore unfortunate that during the recent strikes at the Green Point stadium and the Cape Town International Airport that the Building Industry workers were not aware that they were not allowed to strike legally, and will therefore not benefit from the negotiated increases in wages as their minimum wages and benefits have already been agreed upon and will come into force on 1 November 2009.

 

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