East Cape Master Builders Association: MBA Bulletin : 31 March 2020

As we enter day 5 of the National Lockdown we bring you some general information on what’s happening at the MBA albeit remotely.

As previously mentioned, we began working remotely last Monday and as a result all our departments are still active and only person to person contact and activities have been deferred.

We welcome the following new members into the association. It is good to see that even in these times companies are signing up to be members.

We appreciate the prompt response of many of our members to the Associations Annual Subscription Invoices which were issued in early March. We are starting to issue updated membership certificates to members as and when payments are received. We have also kept increases to a bare minimum and appreciate the support of members as we continue to operate remotely to ensure that your interests are represented and to serve you as best we can.

There has been a lot of confusion about labour and employment issues arising out of the COVID-19, 21 day National lockdown and the MBA has published a number of articles via email and the News page on our website.

From a purely legal perspective we are governed by mainly two pieces of labour legislation namely, The Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA) and The Labour Relations Act (LRA). Strictly in terms of these laws, employees are not entitled, by law, to be paid during the lockdown period if they are not working however the Department of Employment and Labour (DoL) has put out a plea to employers to consider paying the employees during the lockdown if payment is affordable. Many employers have chosen to structure payment solutions so as to ensure that the employees are protected during this time and such actions are fully endorsed by the MBA. These structured payments may have included paid or unpaid leave, staff loans, etc. Many would also have had to lay-off employees and with the limited information available at the time, send them to the UIF with the necessary forms to claim UIF benefits as indicated early last week.

During the course of last week, and as late as Friday, more clear information was provided as to how employers may seek assistance from a special benefit which has been created under the Unemployment Fund (UIF). This is based on a Directive from the Minister of Employment & Labour called “Covid19, Temporary Employee / Employer Relief Scheme (C19 TERS)” and a detailed article was sent to members on this yesterday afternoon.

Entries for our Regional Safety Competition remain open as we have decided to extend entries until the end of April alongside the Subcontractor Safety Competition. Please continue to send in entries and ensure your site is compliant during and after this lockdown period. We will adjust the time for judging of the competition in line with developments around COVID-19 and advise accordingly.

Our training activities including our CETA funded Projects have been placed on hold for now and will recommence as soon as it is possible and safe to do so. These include:

We have applied for an extension for our WSP and ATR submissions. We will advise if and when this is granted but in the meantime we will stick to the normal submission date of 30 April 2020.

Finally, do we have your correct company and contact details? Are the right people in your business receiving our communications?

Time to catch up on that “admin” and update your profile on the MBA website.

Steps to take:

Forgot password? Enter email address for details to be sent to you or if you are not the primary contact, ask Angelique on membership@ecmba.org.za

Remember the Primary Contact should preferably be the Owner/Manager of the business.

Please keep an eye on the News Page of our website for all the latest news and updates regarding COVID-19.