EPWP “means a programme to provide public or community assets or services through a labour intensive programme initiated by government and funded from public resources”.  It also focuses on skills development and is one of the important ways of reducing the levels of poverty and unemployment.  Unemployed citizens are:

  • Given access to temporary work;
  • Helped through skills development programmes and work experience;
  • Recipients of allowances for any work completed as part of the EPWP; and
  • Assisted to find employment or start their own businesses.

An article is about to be published in the Industrial Law Journal (UK) that is certain to be relevant to our expanded public works programmes.  The authors of Workfare Revisited are Amir Paz-Fuchs and Anja Eleveld and this is the abstract of the article as published by the ILJ.

Abstract

“This paper explores and problematizes the exclusion of workfare participants from the scope of employment legislation, offering an opportunity to revisit the scope of the labour protection.  As the UK and the Netherlands have been at the forefront of the European activation turn that catalysed the introduction of workfare programmes in European welfare states, the first part of the paper maps the employment protection of workfare participants in these two countries.  In the second part of the paper we critically assess the reasons why employment status or, at least, employment protection regardless of status, is not granted to workfare participants and to other persons who are fulfilling financial non-rewarding (at least for the worker herself) ‘work’, such as volunteer workers or persons who have been found guilty of an offence and are sentenced to community service.  On the basis of our analysis we suggest to expand labour protection to workfare participants, with or without granting them worker status.”

South African EPWP Conditions of Service

Employment conditions that do apply include:

  • Types of contracts

EPWP contracts are temporary or on a contract basis.

  • Normal Work Hours

Task-rated EPWP workers may not work more than 55 hours a week.

  • Rest Periods

EPWP workers are entitled to a 12-hour daily rest period and must have two hours off a week..

  • Leave

EPWP workers can accumulate 12 sick leave days in a year.  This may not be transferred from one contract to another.  Workers who work for at least four days a week can get three days paid family responsibility leave each year.

  • Payment

EPWP workers are only paid at the end of each month for completed tasks.

  • Health and Safety

Employers must ensure the working environment is healthy and safe.  A worker must use any personal protective equipment or clothing issued by the employer and work in a way that does not endanger their health and safety or that of any other person.

  • Certificate of Service

The certificate will reflect any training received by the worker as part of the EPWP and the work performed by the worker.

Employment conditions that do not apply include:

  • Overtime.
  • Payment for meal breaks longer than 75 minutes.
  • Written employment details.
  • Display of employee rights.
  • Severance pay.
  • Termination notice.
  • Sectoral determinations.

The conditions of employment for EPWP workers are set out in [R. 347 Basic Conditions of Employment Act, 1997: Ministerial Determination 4: Expanded Public Works Programmes page 3 Gazette No. 35310′  Ministerial_determination_4_expanded_works_programmes_4_may_2012

Read More on EPWP in the Western Cape:

For More Information contact the EPWP provincial co-ordination office:

Allison Petersen – Tel:  21 483 8528
E-mail: [email protected]