How the top three health market employers subjugate workers’ right to fair wage negotiation

With the Competition Commission deeply entrenched in labour market exploitation, employer monopsony power dominates the unregulated Health Market. 

How Netcare, LifeHealthcare and Mediclinic Obstruct Constitutional Rights

Each firm advertises jobs without including pay. The Constitution enshrines fair labour market practice (S23.1) which nullifies unfair recruitment conduct, an essential labour market function.

Recruitment is a structured value chain employers apply in order to attract and compete for talent…sort of.

Before a position is advertised, employers identify the salary range they can afford to offer.

Job Advert Pay Secrecy

While Netcare, LifeHealthcare and Mediclinic claims the usual rhetoric about being equal employers, they adopt conduct that discourages women in particular from applying.

Job adverts are market signals that can reduce or increase the volume and quality of applicants.

High unemployment means that labour market predators can count on vulnerable work seekers who have no choice but to apply to unfair adverts marking the start of an iniquitous recruitment process.

You’ll find that the health market’s top employers each use predatory recruitment to limit wage negotiation and obstruct fairness. The Competition Commission of South Africa is informed of these practices as they apply them too.

Benchmarking or Collusion?

Netcare’s remuneration and benefit offerings are benchmarked against industry standards. 

Netcare Website

Which industry standards are these? Does Netcare refer to their two rivals standards that base their wage standards on rival firm compensation obtained from job seekers?

LifeHealthcare Collects Rival Employer Compensation Information – is this collusion or old school cheating?

The LifeHealthcare application form shows how they spy on rival employer compensation. Is this to price-fix and poach talent?

What does a competing employer’s pay have to do with them?

If the top employers are not competing for talent and willing to let rivals see sensitive compensation information, does it mean their only collective interest is to systematically prevent job seeker access to wage information?

When an employer knows more about pay than job applicants, it creates an information gap known as ‘information asymmetry.’

Mediclinic Applies Information Asymmetry

Mediclinic isn’t transparent about pay in job adverts and unfairly forces job seekers to reveal pay expectations.

Job seekers create wage negotiation limitations and obstruct their constitutional rights when stating a pay preference without knowing how much the employer is willing to pay.

Fair recruitment is upfront about pay. Have your say

Netcare scores for Fair Pay, Pay Policy and Pay Transparency are low, indicative of an organisation that doesn’t care about competing for talent.

The health market is not applying fair labour practices.

Recruitment conduct violates the rights of ethical employers, workers and job seekers.

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