The twenty-ninth edition of the Annual Labour Law Conference (ALLC), which is dedicated to covering issues and trends in the field of labour law in South Africa, is due to be held on August 24 and 25 at Emperors Palace, on Gauteng‘s East Rand.

The subject of the conference is #UnemploymentMustFall: Meeting the Challenges of a Labour Market in Crisis, thereby highlighting the latest national unemployment rate of 26.6% as a key challenge, coupled with political turmoil and a domestic economy under strain.

According to University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) School of Law senior lecturer Nicci Whitear-Nel, this year’s ALLC includes a “heavyweight line-up” of government leaders, among them Advocate Thuli Madonsela, who will speak on ‘Navigating job creation and corruption’.

Other labour-related issues to be discussed include youth unemployment, the challenges facing trade unions, retirement reforms, emerging trends regarding retrenchment, the national minimum wage and the implications of the water crisis for the labour market.

Labour broking will also be highlighted and the conference will feature insights into the South African Post Office (Sapo) to be prsented in an address titled ‘Short-term financial savings, long-term industrial relations shambles: The experience of using labour brokers in Sapo’, by the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) Department of Sociology’s Professor David Dickinson.

Labour law specialists, trade unions, government officials, human resources managers, labour practitioners, lawyers and business leaders will have the opportunity to “bring themselves up to date” on the latest cases in collective labour law, procedural law and individual labour law, as well as the impact of the 2014 amendments to the Labour Relations Act and its effect on job creation. Together, these parties will debate and seek solutions to meet the challenges presently facing South Africa.

This year’s ALLC will be opened by Judge Basheer Waglay, with the keynote address being delivered by Deputy Minister in the Presidency Lesetja Manamela.

Among the academic speakers are UKZN professors Tamara Cohen and Whitear-Nel; University of Cape Town professors Rochelle Le Roux, Dr Ariane De Lannoy and Dr Cheri Young; as well as Wits professors Vishwas Satgar, Roger Southall and Nicolas Pons-Vignon.

Representing other organisations will be the International Labour Organisation’s Dr Valerio de Stefano, the Human Sciences Research Council’s Professor Monde Makiwane, Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration’s Afzul Soobedaar and Cameron Morajane and Business Unity South Africa’s Khanyisile Kweyama.