Loet Douwes Dekker
Celebrations in recent weeks commemorating the democratic elections and Workers’ Day highlighted South Africa’s work to ensure new constitutional rights take effect in practice.
In the workplace, this means defining new priorities and guidelines, while taking cognisance of the implications of South Africa having rejoined the International Labour Organisation and the World Trade Organisation.
In South Africa this is being tackled by the endorsement of basic rights for workers and employers: freedom of association and collective bargaining – and at the same time responding to the imperatives demanded by world-class manufacturing and the liberalisation of tariffs.
Social order emerges best from negotiations through joint institutions controlled by interest groups, such as the National Economic, Development and Labour Council (Nedlac).
In 1994, the Department of Labour embarked on a five-year programme of transformation which requires labour-market parties to act on the intent of new values. That legislation was not imposed but shaped by unions and employers’ associations.
The objective is to redress the apartheid legacy and acknowledge the heritage of existing institutions. The new ethos being shaped for the economy is demonstrated by the appointment of the president of the National Union of Mineworkers, James Motlatsi, to the board of Anglogold.
Institutional design has seen remarkable progress, and Nedlac, a tripartite alliance between government, labour and business, typifies this. Nedlac endorsed centralised bargaining and the right to industrial action. Unions and employers’ associations are forging sectoral bargaining councils based on market realities. Unions have modified their one-industry-one- bargaining-council goal.
The next phase of ensuring complementarity between industry bargaining, with its wealth-distributive focus, and workplace negotiations, with its co-operative wealth creation focus, is being tackled.
Union think-tanks such as the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa’s vocational training project and the Industrial Strategy Project have initiated research to improve manufacturing performance.
This ethos also underlies the Department of Trade and Industry’s incentives schemes. The emerging values, rights, obligations and practices underpinning the new industrial relations system include:
l freedom of association or co-operation within conflict;
l collective-bargaining agreements for two years or longer and assistance to companies to use the period to improve competitiveness through co-operative workplace practices; and
l exemption for micro businesses and subcontractors from minimum standards, but a willingness to abide by basic employment practices.