Finance Minister Trevor Manuel on Tuesday urged trade-union leaders to play a meaningful role in skills development and job creation.
He told union members to refrain from blaming the government for failing to deliver a ”better life for all”, in a Workers’ Day address to delegates from the National Council of Trade Unions and the Federation of Unions of South Africa (Fedusa) at the Athlone Civic Centre in Cape Town.
”Despite trade unions having a 50% board representation at the Setas [sector education and training authorities], funds intended for developing skills still go missing and, in some instances, are not used for the intended purpose, which is developing the workers’ skills.
”On a day like this one, union leaders should reflect and ask themselves what they are doing when all these things are happening.”
Job creation, Manuel said, can only happen when the country develops better skills to ensure economic growth.
He also urged union leaders to play a more significant role in dealing with public servants who are not performing. ”When a teacher who is supposed to be in class is instead drinking in a shebeen, what do trade-union leaders say? It is trade-union leaders who should be saying to that teacher, ‘You are wrong.”’
Manuel said that despite having immense power in areas such as Setas and pension funds, union members have done very little to use that power to ensure that workers’ conditions improve.
Equity
Meanwhile, Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana told a Workers’ Day rally in Johannesburg that employment equity is here to stay. ”It will stay until we have eradicated those unfair and abusive labour practices that relegate our mothers and young women in the remotest areas of our country to invisibility,” he said.
”It will remain not only to address these discriminatory practices that still exist today, but chiefly because it makes business sense. It makes business sense to escalate the achievement of employment-equity targets to the chief executive officers and squarely into their business strategies and away from the ambit of middle management in order to give it the prominence that it deserves.
”It will also remain because it fits in the achievement of the goals set by Asgisa [the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa], to ensure that growth is shared.”
To this end, Mdladlana said he has recently cancelled some old wage determinations to bring workers under the protection of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, and will soon announce a new minimum wage for workers in the hospitality sector.
He emphasised that equity is not only about protection, but also about creating a labour regime that seeks to address industry’s demands and respond positively to the requirements of job creation and poverty eradication.
Mdladlana said that, despite the legacy of apartheid, the government has made significant progress in ensuring its labour-market policies promote economic growth, employment absorption, sound and stable labour relations, and skills development, and eliminate workplace inequality and discrimination.
He remains concerned, though, at the increase in workplace accidents. The government’s position is that ”one life lost in the workplace is one too many”.
”Workers and employers alike should clearly understand that we have the right to life, human dignity, equality, freedom of expression, association and also freedom to an environment that is not harmful to our health and well-being. These are constitutional guarantees that are not negotiable.”
What is negotiable is labour legislation. ”We accept that in order to fine-tune our legislation it is necessary to tweak it in order to remove some of the administrative burdens for small business. This will be done in the context of social dialogue that we have established in the country,” he said.
Mdladlana is chairperson of the International Labour Organisation governing body for 2006/07, putting him at the forefront of its campaign for decent work, said (Fedusa) president Mary Malete, also speaking at the Johannesburg rally.
Decent work for all
Permanent and Decent Work for All was the theme this year for Fedusa and the National Council of Trade Unions’ Workers’ Day celebrations.
”Not any job is a good job,” Malete said. ”We see today that casualisation, contract work and informalisation are on the increase, specifically in the retail, tourism, security, cleaning and hospitality sector.
”There is no permanent work; every job is being outsourced and contracted out to a third party with a negative impact on workers.”
Employment is central to poverty eradication, and it is only ”decent work” that will allow people to fulfil their right to a decent life, said Malete.
Decent work is free of discrimination and exploitation, and offers a living wage, social protection, skills development and adult basic education and training, HIV/Aids assistance, gender equality and empowerment, health and safety, and union representation.
It is work that embraces the principles of human rights, entrenching human dignity, encouragement and tolerance in day-to-day life.
The rally was also attended by Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi. — Sapa