Luphert Chilwane

The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) deserved a big party when celebrating its 15th birthday on Thursday because its performance over the past five years has been excellent, said the commission’s director, Nerine Kahn.

She told The New Age on Sunday that there were achievements that needed to be celebrated by the organisation.

“The CCMA feels it has been a successful institution over the last five years. We operated on high level of efficiency, meeting all our obligations and 85% of disputing parties look at us for help because they respect and feel they can trust us,” she said.

Since taking office, Kahn has been praised by many, including the government and organised business and labour, for instilling professionalism within the institution. She never turned her back in her quest to improve the organisation’s profile. Kahn was first appointed as director in 2006 and was reappointed in April this year.

Speaking to The New Age, Cosatu’s general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said the federation had sent a letter to the CCMA, celebrating the birthday with the organisation. “The organisation’s performance over the last five years has been positive,” he said.

The CCMA was set up primarily to protect the labour interests of vulnerable workers, both in rural and urban areas. It conciliates workplace disputes and arbitrates disputes that remain unresolved after conciliation. It offers advice and training on a variety of subjects and may offer to resolve disputes prior to referral to it in certain circumstances. It is a statutory body reporting to the Department of Labour.

During the conciliation or arbitration processes, parties can share information and suggest ways of settling the dispute themselves, and the commissioner may suggest and explore settlement ideas.

“Reviews at the Labour Court are coming down. We have managed to develop a world-class case management system, which is linked to our labour centres across the country and modern technology is helping us to ensure that we are accessible,” she said.

She said employers and their employees were able to receive progress on their cases through smses.

The average turnaround time of conciliation has improved by 19 days to 26 days and arbitration turnaround has improved by 10 days to 69 days. Today the CCMA settles about 69% of all cases brought to it.

This is a significant improvement on 60% of cases settled in 2006. Kahn said arbitration awards were now written in time so disputes were resolved quickly.

“We have worked very hard over the past years to improve our mediation skills. There are strong teams at provincial level with Johannesburg office, dealing with 40% of all national cases,” she said.

While presenting the CCMA’s annual report to the parliamentary committee on labour last month, Kahn reported a 25% increase in the case load over the past five years, with the current load sitting at 154279 as at end of March.

She said the rise in the volume of the workload was not necessarily a reflection that the South African labour market regime was not adversorial or antagonistic.

“The rise in the workload tells us that there is a lot at stake in the economy, and this places the services of the CCMA at high demand,” she said. She further said that the rise in case load was also a reflection or a barometer of what was happening in the economy.

Although the CCMA posted an unqualified audit in the 2010-2011 financial year, the director lamented the budgetary constraints faced by the organisation saying these posed a challenge in the work of the dispute resolution organisation.

luphertc@thenewage.co.za.