The government’s economic policy will not be debated at the forthcoming jobs summit, writes Howard Barrell
The government has beaten off the threat of a direct public challenge to its economic policy at the presidential jobs summit now due to take place before the end of October.
This is another setback for embattled leftwingers in the trade unions and South African Communist Party.
In a series of meetings over the past few weeks, the government and business have outmanoeuvred the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), which wanted a public debate over the policy for growth, employment and redistribution (Gear).
The unions and the SACP initially planned to use the summit to launch an assault on the tight targets Gear imposes on government spending and inflation, arguing these were stifling the creation of jobs. But, after several rounds of tough negotiations and deft public relations moves by business, the unions have now agreed not to raise the issue directly as a separate agenda item.
The African National Congress feared that a public row at the summit would deepen the rifts in its troubled governing alliance with Cosatu and the SACP, embarrass it in the run-up to the general election likely to be held in May next year, and lead to further trouble for South Africa and the rand on turbulent international financial markets.
Deputy President Thabo Mbeki put Minister of Trade and Industry Alec Erwin, a skilled negotiator and himself a former leading unionist, in charge of organising the summit in a way which avoided these three pitfalls. He appears to have delivered on his brief.
The four parties to the preparatory talks for the summit – the government, business, labour and the community – were due to meet on Friday (August 21) to hear a report- back on recent bilateral negotiations between them.
Sources involved in these negotiations said an announcement of a date for the summit was also possible. They added that the summit agenda – the fiercely contested issue that has held up the setting of a date – would also be given greater clarity at the meeting.
The government’s basic strategy during preparatory talks has been to steer its three partners away from any discussion of policy issues at the summit. This has involved government bluntly telling the business community that it wants to hear nothing about the need for liberalisation of the labour market – the kind of demand which would immediately put the unions on the warpath. It has told business leaders to leave this issue for another time and place.
Government negotiators also told business, unions and the community it expected them to bring practical, concrete proposals for job creation to the summit. Cosatu’s proposals are likely to include a public housing programme, support for the unemployed, youth programmes and job-sharing schemes.
Some of these schemes would involve massive state spending, way beyond limits set under Gear. But this indirect, implied censure of government policy is the only kind the summit is likely to see.
The jobs summit is now expected to be held only after a meeting of the ANC’s parliamentary caucus on September 5 that will deal with economic policy. It is also likely to follow a meeting of leaders of the ANC-SACP-Cosatu alliance.
The ANC leadership will use these two meetings to force through its line that Gear is sacrosanct for the foreseeable future. Mbeki, who is now president of the ANC, cracked the whip sharply at last weekend’s meeting of the ANC national executive, according to party sources. And more of the same is in store in the run-up to the jobs summit.
The government’s case was also helped by the business community’s announcement a week ago of a R1- billion job creation and education project. The announcement was perfectly timed to impact on the substance of the report-back meeting on the job summit. The jubilant headlines that resulted bolster the government’s case that adherence to its spending and inflation targets is not harming attempts to increase employment opportunities.
The business initiative is to be financed by companies paying into a fund a proportion of their market capitalisation or after-tax earnings. Business estimates its project could lead to about 450 000 jobs being created in the tourist industry within the next seven years.
A similarly impressive Cosatu proposal, under which each of its two million members would donate a day’s wages to a fund, has not achieved similar headlines. The workers’ wage sacrifice should make available about R100-million for job creation. If, in addition to these two initiatives, the government tables several of its own job-creation programmes at the summit, involving several billions of rands – drawn probably from old as well as new allocations – the summit could go off passably well.
Government and business would come away without any change to Gear; trade union leaders would come away with enough to remain in office; new paper would cover the increasingly serious cracks in the ANC-led governing alliance; voters would believe the government was tackling unemployment as a matter or urgency; and, down the line, a few hundred thousand more workers should get jobs.