Julius Natangwe
Across Namibia, a quiet injustice has become routine: workers supplied by private employment agencies often called labour-hire firms are doing the same work as permanent staff while taking home a fraction of the invoice paid by the client enterprise. In some cases, workers report receiving as little as 30% of the invoiced amount, with the remainder disappearing in the pockets of private employment agencies as mark-ups.
Their complaints aren’t isolated; One of the aims and objectives of The Revolutionary Union (RU), a trade union that I represent reads “6.5 to promote or oppose as the case may be, any laws or administrative measures that affects the interest of our members in particular and workers in general.” This sounds the alarm about systemic exploitation and evasion of labour standards via outsourcing.
At the centre of this controversy is section 128 of the Labour Act, 2007, as amended in 2012, which recognises and regulates private employment agencies and the status of people they place at “user enterprises.” After Namibia’s first attempt to outlaw labour hire outright in 2007 was struck down by the Supreme Court in Africa Personnel Services v Government of Namibia (2009), lawmakers opted for a regulatory compromise in the Labour Amendment Act, 2012. That amendment confirmed that agency-supplied workers have the same rights as other employees and barred user enterprises from employing them on less favourable terms and conditions. Yet a decade on, the market reality tells a different story, slavery of the highest order.
A system built to leak protections
Namibia’s regulatory framework rests on two pillars: the Labour Act’s section 128 and the Employment Services Act, 2011, which licenses private employment agencies. On paper, licensing and equal-treatment provisions should check abuse. In practice, these rules have been too easy for the capitalists to sidestep. Investigations and testimonies continue to describe mines and other sectors replacing permanent staff with outsourced labour, diluting wages and benefits behind the “legality” of a third-party contract. That these trends persist suggests regulatory under-enforcement and structural incentives that favour “cost-cutting” over fair employment conditions.
What international law expects and where Namibia falls short
The International Labour Organization’s Convention 181 (Private Employment Agencies Convention, 1997) lays out clear guidelines. Among its core requirements reads:
“No fees charged to workers – Private agencies must not levy any direct or indirect fees or costs on workers ever, with only narrowly authorised exceptions. When workers effectively fund agency profits through hidden deductions, the spirit of Article 7 is being breached.”
Adequate protection for agency-employed workers
Article 11 demands protection equivalent to other employees across minimum wages, working time, social security, training, occupational safety and health, compensation for injuries, insolvency protection and maternity/parental benefits. Article 12 requires a clear allocation of responsibilities between agencies and user enterprises.
World Employment Confederation
Complaint mechanisms and enforcement – Article 10 requires robust machinery to investigate abuses and fraudulent practices mechanisms that must be accessible and effective in real workplaces, not merely on paper.
Namibia has not ratified Convention 181, but the Supreme Court has previously drawn on it as persuasive authority, and its standards remain the benchmark for protecting workers in agency arrangements. If Parliament wishes to keep private agencies at all, the bar is high; if, as growing evidence indicates, compliance is elusive, the case for abolition of private employment agencies strengthens.
The constitutional bottle-neck – and how to clear it
Some argue that Namibia already tried to ban labour hire and lost. It is true that the 2007 prohibition was struck down in 2009 on constitutional grounds, notably the right “to practise any profession, or carry on any occupation, trade or business.” But that judgment addressed the specific form of the 2007 ban, not the idea that Parliament cannot reshape this market to eliminate abuses.
Therefore, lawmakers have options
Abolish private employment agencies as intermediaries for ongoing labour supply, while permitting genuine one-off placement services (head-hunting without being the employer), and convert agency workers into direct employees of user enterprises after a short, with strictly limited probationary period.
Targeted prohibitions in high-risk sectors (e.g., mining, security, cleaning) where underpayment and substitution of permanent jobs are entrenched and where enforcement is demonstrably failing.
Constitutional clarification, if necessary, through amendment to ensure that worker protection prevails where a business model relies on the systematic undercutting of wages and conditions.
Why abolition is the cleanest fix
While tighter regulation sounds sensible, the Namibian experience shows that enforcement gaps are the rule, not the exception. The very business model of labour-hire firms is to profit from the spread between what a user enterprise pays and what a worker receives—an incentive structure that bakes in downward pressure on wages and obscures accountability for conditions and benefits. Even when an agency contract states, “equal treatment,” the worker has little visibility into the actual invoiced amount, little bargaining power, and limited recourse against two entities conniving to oppress him in the name of both “cutting cost” for one and “maximizing profit” for the other.
Convention 181 assumes a strong state capacity to police these arrangements-licensing that bites, inspections that detect, and swift remedies that make life easier for workers. Until Namibia can guarantee such capacity, abolition is the clearest path to end this slavery on workers’ pay and dignity.
What parliament can do now
Table a Bill to repeal section 128’s authorisation of labour hire as an ongoing triangular employment model, replacing it with direct employment as the default for any person working under the direction and control of a user enterprise for more than a certain period with clearly fixed trial period. Build in provisions that converts placements into direct, indefinite employment after (for example) 30–60 days.
Prohibit profit-taking on wages – make it unlawful for any intermediary to receive consideration tied to a worker’s wage or hours in ongoing labour relationships, eliminating the spread that incentivises underpayment. Align with the Article 7 principle that workers must never pay to work.
Guarantee equal pay for equal work from Day 1 and compel user enterprises to disclose payslips and invoice summaries to placed workers and their unions – enabling verification that no less-favourable terms are being applied.
Establish a specialised Labour-Hire Abolition and Transition Unit – to audit existing contracts, oversee conversion to direct employment, and support affected workers and firms through the transition.
Ratify Convention 181 – to lock in global standards for any residual, narrowly defined placement activities that remain (such as fee-free head-hunting), and to reinforce Namibia’s international standing on decent work.
A mandate for decent work
Namibia’s labour law promises equal treatment for agency-placed workers. Reality has not kept pace. When a worker performing identical duties gets only a sliver of what the client pays sometimes around a third, no legal gloss can hide the inequity. Parliament should act decisively and abolish labour hire, convert jobs to direct employment, and restore transparency and dignity for work done. The Constitution protects enterprise; it does not license exploitation. With the right law, Namibia can protect both.
Sources: Labour Act, 2007 (as amended); Labour Amendment Act, 2012; Employment Services Act, 2011; ILO Convention 181; Supreme Court judgment in Africa Personnel Services (Pty) Ltd v Government of the Republic of Namibia (2009); recent statements and reporting on labour-hire.
*Julius Natangwe serves as the interim proletariat central secretary of the Revolutionary Union. The views expressed here are his own and do not represent those of his employer.
