Let foreign truckers drive!

Foreign drivers should not be scared to work in South Africa. Instead, we should be welcoming them, says NICHOLAS WOODE-SMITH.

As of 20 June 2022, 213 foreign truck drivers had been arrested this year for operating illegally. This has been accompanied by local truck drivers staging economically devastating protests across the N3 and other major highways. These protests are already predicted to have cost the economy over R300 million.

Through all of this, many are blaming foreign truck drivers. But they are not the ones hurting the economy through destructive protests. If anything, they are the ones keeping it alive by maintaining crucial supply chains across the country.

To solve the problem of foreign truck drivers, an 11-point plan has been agreed upon by the South African Transport Union (Satawu), the Industry Bargaining Council, the All Truck Drivers Alliance (ATDF), and the Transport Association of South Africa (Tasa).

The plan, in essence, involves restricting the rights of foreign truck drivers, bringing these drivers in line with our restrictive labour laws (that don’t help anyone), and tightening visa requirements.

The knee jerk reaction by many is that foreigners are taking South African jobs, and this must stop. Local is lekker, right? Well, not necessarily.

Many businesses employ foreigners because they aren’t held back by inane labour regulations that make employing South Africans risky, costly, and restrictive. Often, foreign drivers are more experienced and better-suited for the job. If they weren’t a net benefit to the business – and by extension the economy – they wouldn’t be hired.

Local truck drivers don’t want to compete with foreigners, so they’re disrupting innocent people’s lives, halting supply chains, and damaging the economy. They’re effectively holding the state and its citizens hostage because they fear competition from skilled workers who just want to do their job.

The fact that these truck drivers are foreign is irrelevant. Being local doesn’t make someone more “deserving” of a job than a foreigner. And lack of compliance to destructive labour laws is more than anything else a reflection of why those labour laws should be abolished. Foreign truck drivers aren’t actually hurting anyone. They aren’t “taking” jobs from locals. Because if local people truly wanted those jobs, they wouldn’t be hiding behind unions, labour laws, and the state. They’d perform better, work harder, or be willing to be paid less.

And as consumers, having many cheaper truck drivers shipping goods around the country is a net boon for the economy and for our society. It will reduce the cost of living and make everything cheaper.

We should be welcoming more foreign truck drivers, not pushing them away.

What these moves to restrict foreign truck drivers really amount to is babying industries and lobby groups. It’s pampering local businesses like children. When we restrict competition, we let our local businesses and workers live in a fictional world in which they have protected employment and don’t have to perform well or be paid realistically (because the market rate is what really matters). It doesn’t prepare us for the global market or reality.

Most of all, our economy relies on skilled and affordable truck drivers. And the majority of these are foreign truck drivers. If they are forced out of the industry and country, then watch prices soar even more. And it won’t be the local truck drivers who suffer. The costs of their selfishness will be handed down to the poorest South Africans, who will have to pay even more for the barest essentials.

Instead of restricting foreign truck drivers and forcing ill-thought-out labour laws on them, we should be abolishing the laws for all people working in South Africa, be they local or foreign. Restrictive labour laws are the prime cause of our economic stagnation and decline. Businesses can’t afford the risk or expense of employing costly, often apathetic, union-bound workers. And those who want to work, can’t, as the minimum wage, labour restrictions, and a host of regulations disincentivise businesses from employing new workers. Cut the red tape for everyone, and South Africans will no longer need to worry about foreign truck drivers. Everyone will be on the same footing.

The government and all South Africans must not bow to the demands of these local truckers and their heavy-handed unions. Jobs belong to those willing to work. Accidents of birth should have no bearing on who has the right to work. Let anyone, foreign or not, be employed as a trucker if their employer deems them suitable. And let their performance speak louder than any bit of xenophobic legislation.

The 11-point plan in a nutshell

In this opinion piece, Nicholas Woode-Smith writes about an 11-point plan. Briefly, this is what it’s all about.

The plan is the brainchild of the Road and Freight Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC), which met with industry players – including the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu), the Industry Bargaining Council, the All Truck Drivers Alliance (ATDF), and the Transport Association of South Africa (TASA) – and subsequently formulated the agreement. The IMC includes the Minister of Employment and Labour; Minister of Transport; Minister of Police; and Minister of Home Affairs, and was formed to deal with escalating road blockages and protests by disgruntled South African truck drivers.

The plan, according to Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi, is “a joint effort to mitigate the problems afflicting the industry and find a solution”.

These are the 11 points contained within the plan:

1. Facilitating the appointment of the task team.
2. Enforcement of visa requirements.
3. The need to consider all foreign driving licenses.
4. Registration and compliance with labour laws.
5. Registration of operators in term of Section 45 of the National Road Traffic Act (NRTA).
6. Review of the Traffic Register Number.
7. Review of the Cross-Border Road Transport Legislation.
8. Amendment of the National Road Traffic Regulation.
9. Integrated joint multi-disciplinary law enforcement operations.
10. Implementation of a Driver Training Programme.
11. Consideration of the introduction of Operating Licenses for the industry.

Nxesi said non-compliance cannot be allowed to displace South Africans in the labour market. “We cannot allow the introduction of slave employment practices. We are going to be very hard going forward,” he stated.

He added that, while some operators have asserted that South Africa lacks skilled truck drivers, “inspections and law enforcement operations have found that truck driving was an abundant skill in South Africa and therefore not a scarce skill as purported by some operators”.

Police Minister Bheki Cele has warned employers that they will be arrested for employing so-called “illegal immigrants”.