2010 riches not reaching workforce

The 2010 Local Organising Committee (LOC) and KwaZulu-Natal government heads have dismissed the construction workers’ strike at Durban’s Moses Mabhida World Cup stadium as an ‘internal labour matter”. It was a ‘natural” trade union strategy to make gains, they said.

On the other hand, workers and labour rights activists said the strike went to the very core of South Africa’s claim to being a developmental state.

‘Government has poured billions into infrastructure development in the build-up to 2010 saying these mega projects will help create jobs and alleviate poverty, but what we are finding is that the monopolies are winning while there has been a pushing back of worker gains made over the last decade,” said Eddie Cottel, South African coordinator of the Campaign for Decent Work Towards 2010 and Beyond.

‘Construction workers are the lowest paid in the economy, behind farm workers and domestic workers — construction workers are fully aware of the billions in public funds being spent, but cannot see the benefits as their wages and conditions of work have worsened and there is still a racial dimension to poverty and skills development.

‘This while an analysis of the construction sector company performance indicates an enormous increase of 36% in pretax profits from 2005 to 2006,” Cottel said.

About 1 200 workers, many of whom are affiliated to the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), downed tools last Wednesday after the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration issued a certificate of non-resolution in negotiations between workers and construction consortium Group 5-WBHO-Pandev — triggering the first legal strike to hit South Africa’s 2010 World Cup preparations.

According to NUM regional co-ordinator Bonginkosi Mncwabe, workers’ demands included project completion bonuses for each employee of R1500 per month, and the appointment of a full-time health and safety officer from a trade union.

Mncwabe claimed that some workers employed by the ‘subcontractors” were earning as little as R5 an hour compared with the agreed minimum wage for the sector of R11,90 an hour. He felt this was unacceptable considering taxpayers were shelling out R2,6-billion for the construction of the stadium.

Despite the construction site winning the Master Builders Association KwaZulu-Natal award for the safest site recently, labour department inspection blitzes over the past three months reflect an erratic approach to health and safety regulations, especially on work done on elevated platforms.

According to Siyanda Zandeki, the labour department’s deputy director general for service delivery, an inspection on August 28 caused the site to be temporarily closed down. The ‘life-threatening” violations included workers on scaffolding working without safety harnesses, a faulty crane tower and unguarded excavations.

A follow-up blitz on November 1 showed that there was an absence of toe-boards, which provide traction on high scaffolding, and ‘persons working in an elevated position near the arch base were not properly secured.A prohibition notice was issued, however it was revoked after they had erected a lifeline [steel rope],” said Zandeki.

A department of labour insider said it would be a cause for concern if any company working in the construction sector, whether big or small, were to ignore this sort of regulation.

Citing the various transport workers’ strikes in France during the 1998 Soccer World Cup and this year’s Rugby World Cup, Irvin Khoza, chairperson of the LOC, said the ‘timing of these activities [involving industrial action] were in keeping with the nature of these projects”.

Zweli Mkhize, provincial minister for finance and economic development, felt the strike was less about the perception of an inadequate trickle-down effect of the estimated R30-billion government has pledged to the World Cup, and more of an ‘internal issue” involving labourers, contractors and subcontractors. ‘I don’t think we should feel that there is an injustice going on [at the stadium construction site].”

While KwaZulu-Natal Premier S’bu Ndebele was quick to point out that ‘the commitment to deliver a world class 2010 is a commitment by all of us: government, labour and civil society”, it is becoming apparent that as trade unions make recruiting inroads into a sector with previously low levels of unionisation the commitment priority may shift from one of infrastructure delivery to the delivery of worker rights.

Andrew Wright of the National Empowerment Fund said the country’s construction sector was growing at a rate of 20% a year on the back of six quarters of economic growth.

Cottel said: ‘An analysis of the construction sector company performance indicates an enormous increase of 36% in pretax profits from 2005 to 2006. Executive directors’ remuneration has increased on average by 39%, the highest increase of all the sectors of the economy. But while this boom is expected to last way after 2014, poor working conditions continue through poverty wages, vulnerable employment through subcontracting and labour brokers, and a lack of health and safety at the workplace.”