Glenda Daniels
The public service is in for a bruising battle with organised labour if it goes ahead with plans to shift at least 125E000 unskilled workers from the state payroll.
According to the latest plans drafted by the Department of Public Service and Administration, up to 20% of the public service’s unskilled employees are in line to be hived off -either to private-sector companies or to be retrenched. Details of the proposed shake-up are contained in two department reports, Personnel Expenditure Review and Public Service Review Report, the latter of which was drawn up in April. The figures are due to be given final Cabinet approval next month.
While it has long been speculated that the government has been preparing to retrench 50E000 employees, it has kept its other restructuring plans – such as outsourcing – under wraps. The latest draft of the restructuring plan contains a breakdown amounting to 125E000 auxiliary personnel, although a senior source within organised labour said this week an earlier draft from last month contained the global figure of 200E000.
Neva Makgetla, the Congress of South African Trade Unions’s (Cosatu’s) co- ordinator for fiscal and public sector policy, says the review suggests the government wants to outsource auxiliary – or unskilled – workers, which would be about 20% of the public service, or nearly 200E000 people, some of whom might be retrenched.
Makgetla, herself a former official in the public service department, says she believes the figure of 200E000 would probably include about 50E000 retrenchments.
The looming shake-up of the public service is likely to be the biggest test yet for the alliance of the African National Congress, Cosatu and the South African Communist Party. The restructuring of the civil service is a crucial aspect of the government’s commitment to fiscal austerity.
The cuts might, therefore, provoke increasingly contradictory public stances on economic policy from the ANC in government – which will be mindful of the investment community – and from the party itself, which will be more concerned with safeguarding the alliance.
The public service’s restructuring plans embrace several options for alternative service delivery. These range from outsourcing to the private sector, to workers’ co-operatives, to the setting up of semi-autonomous government agencies – some of them providing the same service, such as cleaning, to several national, provincial and local government departments. Senior government sources say they will be doing all they can to ensure job security in the medium term for public servants affected by the changes, although such guarantees are unlikely to stretch beyond three years.
According to the latest draft of the document, the government plans to outsource “non-core” functions will include 70E000 unskilled workers in the health sector, 40E000 unskilled workers in education, and, in the Northern Province alone, 35E000 workers in public works.
The Personnel Expenditure Review says thousands of jobs have already been lost. Between 1994 and 1998, the police shed 11E000 jobs and defence lost 10E000. In 1999 a further 5E000 jobs were lost in defence and 4E000 in the police.
Next week, on May 15, the government will begin formal wage negotiations. It is also expected to take the opportunity to table its retrenchment plans.
Last year, when the government and public service unions failed to resolve their pay dispute, the government went ahead and implemented its salary offer unilaterally.
For its part, organised labour is expected to release a new policy document within the next few days clarifying its position on structural changes in the public service and challenging the retrenchment and outsourcing plans.
In Cosatu’s view, the state is reversing its own labour policy on the public service. The Cosatu document is expected to propose alternatives to the government’s plans to hive off services to the private sector. The document will also suggest guidelines for constructive negotiations for dispute settlement, as opposed to unilateral implementation by the government of its pay offer.
Labour is also expected to propose alternative guidelines for restructuring of the public service. Cosatu suggests “developmental restructuring” – involving more government spending on skills training – and that the government should view labour as an important resource rather than just a cost. The public service unions also reject the view that only autonomous agencies can deliver services efficiently. They are arguing that skills training will raise public- service productivity.
Cosatu’s Makgetla says: “The state is aligning budgetary processes and collective bargaining, subordinating labour relations to a declining budget, due to heavily restrictive fiscal policy. This will have perverse consequences. I’m not optimistic about the prospects of relations between the public service and labour.”
She says the “ideology of a contracting state and managerialism” has taken over, where the state is reversing its own labour policy implemented since 1994. “What’s being put on the table all in one go are cuts in benefits and wages, and retrenchments.”
So, principles of structural changes are not being discussed and agreed to before the implementation of retrenchments and remuneration policy. This is what has led to a breakdown in talks in the public service.
The public service department initially said it would consult and complete its skills auditing process before retrenching but it seemed it had changed its minds on this, Makgetla said.
“They are trying to push forward a plan without negotiation. This insistence about retrenching without negotiation they view as a symbolic victory for management,” she said.
The National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union’s Mark Sweet said the tense atmosphere between the public service and the union over last year’s wage dispute would inform any restructuring that took place this year.
“The public service negotiations are going to be extremely volatile this year, which is going to lead to a massive showdown. Their negotiations have no framework and are ad hoc. This is grossly unfair for collective bargaining,” he says. He said the unions have tried several times – unsuccessfully – to gain access to policy discussions.
Director for personnel expenditure policy in the public service department Kuben Naidoo said he could not comment on any figures for retrenchments or outsourcing.
He said that through “rationalisation, downsizing, natural attrition and outsourcing” there would be better service delivery and cost- cutting for the public service, where wages paid to low-skilled workers were high and unsustainable.
“At the end of the day nobody wants to retrench, but we have to balance with trade-offs. We need service delivery,” Naidoo said. “In the short term we are going to find a retrenchment tool with the unions and try and reach an agreement. This will begin immediately.”
He said the public service has not used one model of outsourcing, and that it depended on the service and specific agreement with the company and the length of service of the employees.
“We tell a company if you take on x number of staff, we will guarantee you a contract for three years. For us the incentive is improved quality of services, and we save costs. The one big concern by the state is that pensions should be transferable to the new company and that workers don’t lose their benefits.”