Trade union federation Cosatu is sometimes described as a labour aristocracy, an island of privileged workers earning relatively high salaries surrounded by a sea of unemployed.
Cosatu’s own figures appear to back this up: a survey for the union federation shows that its members earn a median R3 500 a month. The survey, by Cosatu’s research arm Naledi, was published this year after surveying 3 000 workers on wages and other issues.
The survey shows the R3 500 median wage figure is 40% more than the median wage for non-union members, who earn about R1 500 a month.
The median wage for all workers is about R2 000, according to the government’s 2006 labour force survey.
The relatively high earnings of Cosatu’s members reflect the changing membership of the union federation, which has seen strong membership growth in the public service. These members typically have higher levels of education and skill than Cosatu’s traditional blue-collar membership.
About 800 000 of Cosatu’s current members — about 44% of the 1,8-million total — are drawn from the public service. Teachers, health, police and correctional service workers predominate.
Cosatu has shown strong membership growth from the public sector. In 1985 it had a very different profile, with manufacturing workers constituting the bulk of members and public service members representing the smallest proportion.
This composition changed in 1997 when the number of public sector workers grew to about 600 000 members. Public sector workers continued to be the largest sector of workers in the federation between 1997 and the present, while manufacturing workers have declined by about 100 000.
The median Cosatu salary hides the large proportion of educated public service workers in the federation.
In the Naledi survey the average salary for workers in the public sector and health workers union Nehawu was R5 000, the average police wage was R8 500, the average teachers’ wage was R7 600, while the average municipal workers earns about R4 500.
Contrasted to these figures, the average mineworker earned R4 000, metal workers earned R3 200, commercial and catering workers earned R3 300 on average and clothing and textile workers earned an average of R870.
The survey did not measure farm workers, domestic workers or workers in small enterprises.
An economist involved in compiling the survey said that income figures tend not to be entirely accurate because people at the top and bottom of income categories are often not keen to report their incomes.
Members of non-Cosatu unions who were included in the survey earned an average of R6 400, which she said reflects its orientation towards higher earning and fewer African workers.
The skill profiles of the surveyed workers suggest that the wages partially reflect the return to education. Most respondents had secondary education and about a quarter had tertiary degrees. The teachers union had the largest number of members with degrees in the survey at 86%, followed by 37% in the public sector and health workers’ affiliate.
Cosatu’s survey shows that a quarter of the federation’s members count as professionals, mostly teachers and nurses, while a fifth of its members are semi-skilled production members.
Cosatu labour policy analyst Rudy Dicks said that in many cases the trade union wage premium reflected a long history of collective bargaining.
While he acknowledged that the trade-off for high wages was fewer jobs, he said that in the long run higher wages stimulated productivity innovation and investment.
Dicks maintained that a low-wage strategy was not feasible. In low-wage countries, like China and Vietnam, the government provided a social wage, he said, which allowed employers to pay lower wages. He also said that the struggling clothing and textile industry showed that a low-wage regime was unsustainable without further productivity improvements and investment in skills.
In a 2006 position paper on labour market reform Cosatu argued that it would not be feasible to cut wages to seriously dent unemployment levels. To halve unemployment by 2014 in line with the government’s accelerated and shared growth initiative, the federation calculates that pay would have to be slashed by 40%. These figures are based on research that shows that a 1% cut in pay generates about a 0,5% increase in employment.
Cosatu also points out that most workers live at, or below, the poverty line. Using $2 per day as the poverty line and the September 2005 Labour Force Survey, half of all workers and a third of those in the formal sector earn less than the poverty line. In agriculture and domestic work, half of all workers earned under R500 a month while in construction and retail, half got less than R1 000 a month.