Ferial Haffajee
Trade unions are the training ground of a different type of MBA graduate.
Like those with MBAs, unionists are all- rounders who are “well-versed in finance, work organisation and conflict resolution”, says Bobby Maree, programme co-ordinator of the Development Institute for Training, Support and Education for Labour (Ditsela).
Years of negotiations have made them wily deal-makers who can think on their feet and who know the cut-and-thrust of business. “They’re also skilled in creatively developing strategy,” says Maree.
These qualities have meant that trade unions have become key recruitment centres for three layers of government in the past three years: national, provincial and local.
But unions are also happy hunting ground for business, who not only employ skilled staffers, but also secure smoother negotiations with employees.
While it is national figures like Safety and Security Minister Sydney Mufamadi and former National Union of Mineworkers deputy general secretary Marcel Golding who are often counted as key losses to the union movement, it’s the gaps left at provincial and local branches which have been the widest.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) says the brain drain has been stemmed, while human resource practitioners point to many talents they’re finding on the shop floor.
“There is no leadership vacuum; the calibre of shop stewards is very good,” says labour consultant Andrew Levy. He says that Cosatu has worked fast to seal the cracks more successfully than the National Council of Trade Unions which has also lost officials.
The older unions like those in the mining, engineering and chemical sectors have managed to train new officials quickly; but the weaker unions like those in the construction and security industries are struggling.
Cosatu representative Nowetu Mpati says the federation has invested R1-million in a training programme stretching from shop stewards to general secretary Sam Shilowa. “Remember that those people who left Cosatu were not born leaders. It’s through Cosatu training that they could be released with confidence.”
To keep more of their staff, the federation has decided that those elected to local government can wear their councillor, or even mayoral, caps while remaining in the service of trade unions. Cosatu’s campaign co-ordinator, for example, is also the mayor of one of Johannesburg’s councils.
Trade unions have also watched their turf alter radically in the past three years.
Militant anti-government campaigns have given way to tripartite negotiations with business and government. Wage negotiations demand new skills as access to company information often makes the old system of demands and offers obsolete.
Ditsela director Chris Bonner says the institute is currently planning a new approach to company information which goes beyond teaching unionists how to read balance sheets, but teaches them to use company information to win gains for their members.
New legislation throws up new challenges: Ditsela is currently running courses on the new Labour Relations Act, but its main task is to create a career path for unionists to keep them in the labour movement.
Karl von Holdt is the co-ordinator of Cosatu’s September commission which is planning policy to take the federation into the next century. The commission has identified the management of trade unions as an area of great need.
Trade unions must pay better, offer greater benefits and create the atmosphere in which people will flourish.
And while Von Holdt also points to the many new bright young things in Cosatu’s trade unions, he says “it’s difficult to rebuild the experience and skills built up over a number of years”.