One
of the uniquely South African labour phenomena is this "thing" that is known as "piece jobs". That
is the situation where more than one employer is hiring the services of the same employee. It is
quite common that the same employee will work one or more day(s) a week for different employers,
sometimes as much as four or five different employers.
This situation is addressed in the
South African Labour Law by making the definition of an employee someone that works for 24 hours
a month (one day a week) and the employer is someone who makes use of such services for 24 or more
hours a month. This phenomena, creates the possibility that the employee can lose one or two of
their "jobs" but still be employed with the other/s. However with the UIF, now implemented for the
domestic workers there is now something that must be called "partial loss of income".
Currently
the UIF system can only handle an individual as fully employed (someone making contributions) or
fully unemployed (someone that qualify for benefits). However the adding of domestic workers to the
system create a unique problem. The current calculation of benefits can not handle this phenomenon in
the domestic worker environment.
Such an employee does not qualify for benefits, purely
because the system can not handle such a situation yet. The UIF is aware of this and are looking at
finding a solution that will provide for so called "partial unemployment".
For now, if an
employee loses one or more of their "piece jobs" and are still employed in one or more other
"piece jobs" they will not qualify for benefits under the Unemployment Insurance Fund. To qualify
for benefits they will have to be completely unemployed.
By: Corrie Niemann
June 2003
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