Know what you get into with man on the street

Picking up a job seeker on the street corner to help with either moving house or any other job that you need to be done classifies you as an employer. Whether it’s an hour’s job that needs to be done or a whole day’s job, should they be injured while on duty, you are liable for their medical expenses.

Legal consultant in occupational health and safety Jaco Engelbrecht explained that due to the lack of awareness from the Department of Labour, most casual workers sometimes fall victim and never get any assistance from their employers.

One such person who once fell victim was job seeker, Martin Moswang who said he recently fell off a bakkie while he was helping someone move house. “The bakkie was full of furniture and I was sitting on the tip at the end. Along the route, the driver applied brakes and I fell off as I did not balance well,” explained Moswang. He said he never received any compensation from the employer who just hired him from the side of the road. There was neither an employment contract and the said employer just left him off there without paying him for services he had rendered nor help him to go to hospital.

Engelbrecht cautions that this trade is actually improper as any employment agreement that is entered into – whether orally or written – must stipulate the hours that are to be worked and the job that needs to be done and also be registered with the Workman’s Compensation Fund. “When this is done, the employee will be covered should they be injured, disabled or killed while on duty,” explained Engelbrecht. He also made light that there was a lot of breach in the informal sector with less formal structure like Moswang’s case.

Engelbrecht also highlighted that the Workman’s Compensation Fund Act’s greater purpose is to take away the burden from employees as a common law plan against employers.

Graeme du Toit of Vitalmed confirmed that most small companies, including some restaurant groups, have not registered their employees for workman’s compensation. “We only find this out this after rendering our services because paramedics put the patient’s health first and we only process claims later,” explained Du Toit who said that is when they discover that they are dealing with delinquent employers. He highlighted that only 10 per cent of their workman’s compensation claims were actually paid.

Details: Department of Labour Roodepoort, 011 766 2000; Randburg 011 781 8144; Johannesburg 011 223 1000/01.