workers
Glenda Daniels
An International Resource and Information Group (Ilrig) survey released on June 1 by the municipal workers in Cape Town showed that there is very little support for the local government’s restructuring plans.
Contents of the survey centred on work organisation, labour relations, service delivery and municipal restructuring (including the Unicity mega-city model).
Overall the research findings present a work force that is disappointed with local government’s performance, concerned about job security and outsourcing, and sceptical of the prospects of improvement through the Unicity process.
Some of the key findings of the research were:
l 63% of the respondents said they felt less secure in their jobs than five years ago. A major source of increasing insecurity was the extensive outsourcing of ”non-core” functions. This was reported in all four municipalities;
l Only 34% of the survey partici-pants reported receiving any training at all in the past five years;
l Assessment of labour relations was mixed but nearly a quarter (22%) characterised relationships between management and workers as ”very bad”;
l Responses on management methods indicated little use of worker participation type processes. ”Team building” was the most common of such processes (46%) but others like ”value sharing” were present in less than 15% of workplaces;
l Both focus groups and surveys indicated a negative view toward the amalgamation/restructuring of 1996/1997.
Key issues raised were the failure of the municipalities to actually come together, a ballooning of the ranks of management, and lack of progress toward parity in wages and conditions of service.
A number of respondents linked the failure to achieve parity to continuing racism in local government. Several in the survey referred to the restructuring as ”a waste of time and money”;
l In nearly all topics covered by the research, workers reported lack of consultation and communication. In particular, participants highlighted lack of consultation around restructuring, redeployment and reorganisation of work; and
l With regard to the Unicity, 37% of those surveyed were not aware of the initiative. Those who were familiar with it were generally pessimistic. Nearly all reported a lack of sufficient information.
Those in the focus groups feared that the Unicity would mean further outsourcing, retrenchments and more jobs for highly paid managers.
The number of workers interviewed in the research were neither completely randomly chosen nor statistically significant.
On the other hand, this is the first instance in which the voice of labour has been formally injected into the Unicity process. Workers and the communities where workers live are central to the transformation process.
Hence, the research team believes that the issues presented by respondents in the survey need to be given serious attention if the local government in the Cape Metropolitan Area is to become more accountable and a more effective deliverer of services.
In particular, the issues of consultation and communication with workers need to be incorporated into the planning and overall approach of the Unicity process.