Lay down your swords and get on with the job
The last we heard about the hotly contested Basic Conditions of Employment Bill was Tito Mbowenis unilateral announcement a few weeks ago that consensus had been reached a claim as quickly refuted by business as by the labour constituency.
Since then, no attempt has been made to re- open discussions at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac), the preferred setting for such debates, so one can only assume that the labour minister will make good his threat and put the matter to Parliament. Well, the highest power in the land reconvenes on Monday but still the minister is holding out on what his next move will be.
The feelings of frustration surrounding the Bill are palpable among all the interested parties, not least the minister himself. Long before this latest impasse, Mboweni stressed the need to remain optimistic. Its my job, he told me. But then he went on to talk about Marx and the unity and struggle of opposites. He had to tread very carefully because the two constituencies of labour and business, while primarily intent on attacking each other, could just as easily turn on him.
For a long time more than 18 months, which saw the first and second launch of the Bill he did just that, but he seems to have run out of patience, or at least time. With a packed schedule ahead, and only a year to go before the next election, the pressure is on his department to show some progress.
The controversy was not unexpected it goes to the heart of the relationship between capital and labour, he said but taking the Bill to Parliament will further polarise the debate. In addition, the acrimony surrounding it threatens to spill over into the planning for the Presidential Jobs Summit, originally scheduled for this month but now unlikely to take place until early next year.
The two were never supposed to be linked, but under current circumstances it became inevitable. The danger is that the adversarial atmosphere that has characterised one set of discussions will continue into the next. But already the realisation is dawning that job creation is too important an issue to be subjected to the kind of posturing and politicking witnessed in the Basic Conditions debate.
So, the Bill will go to Parliament, Cosatu will go on strike as promised for two days, business will do its bit to lobby the interested parties (although it has precious little chance with the overwhelming majority of the parliamentary committee members supporting Cosatu), and Mboweni wins the day. The social partners will have to live with their differences.
And then the real work starts. Indeed, it is under way, albeit a few months late. A four-member technical committee has been set up to devise an agenda and a suitable time-frame to finalise a job-creation strategy, which will then be discussed at Nedlac and presented to the president. The summit should not be seen as the main event but as the culmination of discussions, so that by the time the social partners sit down in the presence of its convenor, President Nelson Mandela, all their differences will have been ironed out, in theory at least.
The reality could be another round of rhetorical blows, but there is a heartening sense that this time will be different. The key lies in the management of the discussion processes; it is not inconceivable that labour will use the opportunity to raise its objections to the governments macro-economic strategy, while business might start harping on about restrictive labour practices again.
Government will also have to do its bit: merely presenting the same old list of job programmes, department by department, will not set the world alight. This is where next months ANC policy conference comes in. Real policies, not just broad statements of intent, are needed.
One thing is certain, the partners to the process are only too well aware of the dangers of a repeat performance. The stakes are increasing, but so too, hopefully, is the sense of urgency and commitment to addressing this most serious of economic problems.