Declaration of Organised Labour on priorities for
2006-7
Preamble
Delegates from the country's leading trade union federations,
COSATU, FEDUSA and NACTU met in Cape Town at a National Labour
Summit from 7-8 February 2006.
Following a detailed review of the work of NEDLAC and other
institutions of social dialogue, organised labour adopted this
Declaration, which will now be implemented by all constituent
members of the National Labour Caucus.
Vision
Organised labour believes it is imperative that we restructure
the economy towards a job-creating growth path. Our vision is of a
society with more and better jobs, and decent work for all.
This requires that we focus on jobs, workers rights, widening
social equity and increased participation in economic and social
decision-making.
As constituent trade union federations, we commit to work
together to achieve these goals, and to deepen further our efforts
at presenting a unified labour view on the challenges facing our
country, and the solutions required to achieve the goals we have
set out.
We commit further to use the opportunities of social dialogue,
and to upgrade our involvement in a range of statutory
institutions.
Key priorities
We recognise that to achieve our goals will require a major
transformation of the economy and society, and the development of
appropriate macro and micro policies to achieve these. As an
immediate step, we have identified a series of key areas of focus
that can strengthen our struggle for an improved life for workers
and the poor.
We now adopt the following key priorities that must inform all
our engagement in forums and committees, and which will become the
benchmark by which we evaluate our success.
- Promote decent work: job creation, job security and
employment quality
Organised labour will promote job creation and job security
through a range of measures. This is intended to promote a new
growth path. This includes interacting with government on ASGISA in
order to ensure that the GDS agreements are effectively
implemented, and to realise the goals of decent work, increased
investment and increased equity. This includes also promoting the
expansion of public works programmes and ensuring that more
investment is deployed to economic activities that promote decent
and sustainable jobs.
- Defend the rights of workers, in particular the rights
to fair labour practices for all workers, including workers in
small businesses, centralised bargaining and fair minimum
conditions of work.
We commit to maintaining and expanding the floor of worker
rights set out in the Labour Relations Act, the Basic Conditions of
Employment Act, the Employment Equity Act and other labour
laws.
We will defend the right to centralised bargaining and ensure
that bargaining councils are strengthened, that they cover workers
in small businesses and that the efforts by some in the society and
elsewhere to undermine bargaining councils are strongly resisted.
This includes efforts to render bargaining council unrepresentative
through employer efforts to resign from employer organisations. We
will not hesitate as labour federations to unite our members in
strike action in defence of our rights.
We are aware of attempts to undermine worker rights under the
guise of reducing the 'regulatory burden' on business, and will not
accept the use of Regulatory Impact Assessments to reopen the
discussion on worker rights.
We believe all workers, including those at small businesses are
entitled to the constitutional protection of fair labour practices.
We therefore reject the attempt to exclude workers in small
businesses from minimum wages, bargaining councils or the
protection of the law.
- Combat the increased casualisation and informalisation
of labour, and ensure all workers have rights.
We express our strong opposition at attempts by some businesses
to deny workers rights through manipulating the employment
contract. This can take the form of casualisation, contract work,
labour broking and informalisation.
The study conducted by the Department of Labour on this issue
should be used to improve the conditions of workers who are
currently denied rights to employment security and standards.
Amendments to the LRA aimed at protecting vulnerable workers,
particularly those regarding independent contractors, should be
effectively used.
Unions must improve our strategies to organise and represent
this layer of workers, and give them voice and power in our
organisation.
- Support the buy local campaign, and focus it on saving
local jobs
We commit to strengthen the Proudly South African campaign, and
to have all sectors develop customised promotional activities.
We will campaign that all retailers selling consumer goods such
as clothing and food, increase their level of local purchasing
substantially, with a goal of 80% to 90% local procurement, and
that retailers make resources available to market local products to
consumers.
We will use our influence in all bodies to secure support for
local procurement, by the public and private sector, and to use our
representivity in areas where investment decisions are made, to
invest in companies that support the buy local campaign.
We support the use of labels of origin to ensure South
African-made products are clearly known. We will campaign for
improvements in customs at ports of entry to eliminate smuggling
and illegal imports.
As labour federations, we will take the lead by introducing
proper systems internally to ensure we buy local, and we commit to
a Code to regulate our purchases of particular goods and
services.
We will campaign that large companies become premium members of
the Proudly SA campaign and will fight efforts of certain
companies, including major life assurers, to undermine the
campaign.
- Promote increased investment, in areas that meet
national social objectives.
The 5% target for the use of investable funds for socially
responsible investment, concluded at the GDS, must be implemented.
We believe the basic objectives of the targeted investment should
be to promoting jobs, the buy local campaign, decent work practices
by companies, cooperatives and building of basic social
infrastructure. Clear guidelines will be developed in respect of
each of these objectives.
Should the current agreement not be implemented as a matter of
urgency, the labour movement will formally propose the introduction
of a prescribed asset requirement on businesses.
- Promote industrial and trade policy measures that save
and create quality jobs.
We believe that a strong, active industrial policy should be
developed, with clear sector-level elements. Industrial policy
should promote quality jobs and create capacity locally. These are
key elements of a developmental state that responds to the needs of
citizens. Trade policy should be supportive of such a
growth-oriented industrial strategy. To this end, organised labour
will engage with current government draft policy to achieve these
ends.
We will ask for a comprehensive rethink on the proposed
bilateral trade policy initiatives, to ensure that we do not
destroy jobs locally.
We will request that trade negotiations particularly with the
USA, China and India be carefully tested against the criteria of
their impact on local industry, and to stop moves towards bilateral
negotiations that damage employment, particularly with China and
India, and to reject provisions requested by the USA to include
issues such as procurement, competition policy and intellectual
property rights, in bilateral agreements.
We call for immediate action to reverse the damage caused by the
flood of largely Chinese imports in the economy, through using
safeguard measures wherever possible.
We will campaign for an active industrial policy that promotes
labour-absorbing growth. Government set-asides to Black Economic
Empowerment companies, SMMEs and Women's Economic Empowerment
entities, as well as all government (particularly dti) incentives
(as well as development finance incentives) should be linked to
local procurement, respect for labour rights and tax
compliance.
The labour movement commits to monitor current negotiations at
the WTO in Geneva, and to ensure and campaign to retain the gains
made by developing countries, particularly relating to keeping the
policy space for countries to use appropriate trade measures to
save jobs, supply basic services and build an industrial and
service capacity. We will campaign against adoption of so-called
Non-agricultural market access (NAMA) formulas that will result in
the loss of manufacturing jobs in South Africa and other developing
countries.
- Build a strong cooperative movement, and expand the
number and success of cooperatives
We will seek support from the state, and Retirement Funds, to
promote the development of producer cooperatives. Equally, the
procurement policies of businesses should promote cooperatives.
Labour will table proposals in this regard at sector summit
level.
We will work with the Coop Movement to build consumer and
finance coops that are geared to social goals.
- Make the workplace training system work for members:
increase the amount and quality of training, and strengthen
SETAS
We will develop annual targets, progressively increasing, to
ensure that significant numbers of current workers, and the
unemployed, go through structured learnerships that promote
advanced skill development. This needs to vastly exceed the number
of people previously placed on apprenticeships.
We will develop common performance indicators across SETAs, and
ask for some SETAs to merge in order to develop more effective
delivery capacity.
We commit to strengthen our representation at SETAs in order to
ensure that they are effective, that proper corporate governance
systems are in place and that training is expanded. To this end, we
further commit to launch a training programme for labour
representatives during 2006.
We call for better integration between workplace and academic
skills, and will work to coordinate the standard-setting
institutions and government departments (the NSA, SAQA and CHE, as
well as the Departments of Education and Labour) to ensure an
effective delivery.
- Campaign to have an exchange rate that is geared to job
creation.
We believe the Rand is currently valued at an inappropriate
level, and has resulted in massive job losses in many sectors,
including manufacturing, mining, and tourism. We believe that the
policies of the Reserve Bank has contributed to the over-valued
exchange rate.
We will campaign to have an exchange rate that is more
compatible with the goal of creating and saving jobs in South
Africa.
We will engage the SARB and government on interest rates,
short-term speculative and portfolio flows, the mandate of the
Reserve Bank, and policy tools to ensure a more appropriately
valued Rand.
To this end, we recall the calls by the labour movement for an
exchange rate valued in a R9-R10 to the US $ band and now commit to
campaign for a more competitive exchange rate.
- Reform the insolvency and competition laws to
prioritise jobs
We will lead discussions to change the focus of insolvency
legislation in order to place greatest priority on saving companies
going through difficulty, and shift power away from trade and
finance creditors, towards workers.
We will call for a review of competition policy and legislation
to ensure that it takes on a greater mandate to promote decent
work, that is, to save jobs and enhance the quality of jobs.
- Achieve broad-based black economic empowerment, with
benefits to workers and communities.
We have serious reservations with the shape of many current
black economic empowerment initiatives. They seem directed simply
at the enrichment of a few individuals, and often is simply a front
for the status quo.
We will campaign to ensure that empowerment is broad-based, and
reaches communities and workers in large numbers.
We will ensure that employment creation AND local procurement is
included in the generic scorecard currently being negotiated at
NEDLAC.
We will work to secure support for empowerment to be broader
than only transfers of ownership, but that it includes payment of a
living wage to black workers, and skills transfers.
- Engage with the courts and the emerging labour
jurisprudence to achieve the objectives of fair labour practices
and expansion of worker rights
We will monitor the development of our jurisprudence to ensure
that gains made in legislation are not reversed through narrow or
conservative judgements.
We will defend the values of the Constitution, in particular the
provisions on workers rights.
We believe strongly that a specialist labour court is vital to
ensure an appropriate specialist jurisprudence develops, shaped by
equity considerations. To this end, we reject reforms of the
judiciary that destroys the specialist functions and character of
labour courts. We support the continuation of the system that
provides Nedlac with meaningful say over the appointment of judges
to hear labour matters.
We will take mass action if the judicial system is changed that
destroys the specialist character of labour jurisprudence, or that
weakens the role of Nedlac in the appointment of judges to hear
labour matters. We will further ensure that we retain the right of
trade unionists to represent members directly in court.
- Campaign for a comprehensive national health system
that ensures universal access to quality care
We will work with community organisations, and government, to
develop a national health system that provides universal access,
with quality care.
We will table proposals at sector and Nedlac level to begin to
build such a national health system. To this end, we call for a
people's Health Charter negotiated at Nedlac.
We will campaign for full treatment for HIV positive persons,
and a comprehensive education campaign to prevent the spread of
HIV-Aids.
- Ensure control of retirement fund investment decisions
are placed with trustees and members and that the Retirement Policy
Review achieves our goals
We will work to ensure that trustees truly control decisions of
pension and provident funds.
We will campaign to strengthen the employee trustees, with the
goal of 100% employee trusteeship of all Funds in future.
We will seek to reduce the power of asset managers and Fund
consultants and administrators, who currently see trustees as
rubber stamps.
We will develop training programmes for trustees, and develop a
common platform that trustees can use to mandate benefit
consultants and asset managers on investment decisions. To this
end, we will require Funds to invest locally, to invest in
companies that create jobs, and to invest in manufacturers and
retailers who support the buy local campaign.
We will enter into negotiations at Nedlac on government's draft
retirement fund reform document and ensure we achieve the goal of
union-linked trustees gaining more authority over investment
decisions, and implement the terms of the Worker Trustees
Declaration adopted in 2004.
- Towards a peoples 2010 World Cup
Organised labour expresses our pride in South Africa's hosting
of the 2010 World Cup.
We believe the 2010 World Cup should have a developmental
focus.
For the 2010 World Cup, organised labour proposes a 2010
Framework Agreement to be concluded at Nedlac between all
constituencies, which should reflect the priorities set out
earlier, and in particular should contain provisions dealing
with
- Local procurement in line with Proudly SA
- Employment
- Infrastructure
- Labour standards
- BEE guidelines
- Promotion of cooperatives
- Access to matches
- Take up the key demands of labour
We commit to continue to campaign and negotiate on the key
demands made by workers for many years, including to secure a
fiscal policy that strongly promotes social equity, redistribution
of wealth and expansion of the economy, social policy that ensures
houses, income, adequate education and access to quality public
healthcare and labour market policy that promotes the rights of
workers.
We will take forward the demands on labour market issues,
including on unemployment benefits, compensation on occupational
injuries and other proposals made at Nedlac.
- Build Nedlac and other institutions of engagement and
social dialogue
We will work to strengthen our involvement in, and the power and
mandates of, Nedlac as the primary social dialogue institution, and
support the work of and other institutions of engagement (such as
the CCMA, ECC and others) We will resist the drift to bilateralism
and the multiplication of structures and consultations, all of
which can seriously undermine Nedlac. We will interact
constructively with the current review of Nedlac's performance and
use it to advance Nedlac's role in the society.
We will engage with global social dialogue institutions, and
also build social dialogue on the African continent. We will seek
to house the Ecosocc South African Chapter within Nedlac's ambit,
and integrate its work within Nedlac.
Forums and methods to achieve these
We commit to use our resources and power to make measurable
progress on all the priority areas, and to ensure that we build a
strong movement, united in purpose.
This Declaration will be given to all representatives of
organised labour on different forums, to use as a guideline for
engagement, and mandate development.
We will use this as the guide in Nedlac, at sector level, in
developing representations for parliamentary committees, and in the
work on the 2010 World Cup.
Improving work in NEDLAC
We reaffirm NEDLAC as the primary institution of social dialogue
and will defend it from attempts to reduce its role.
We are aware that NEDLAC has faced many challenges. Outside of
the Department of Labour, many government department do not seem to
understand the role of NEDLAC and routinely avoid tabling issues
for negotiation. This is clearly undermines the NEDLAC Act.
We will build the internal NEDLAC institutional capacity,
including to increase highly skilled personnel.
We recognise that for NEDLAC to continue playing its strategic
role requires consistent participation by all constituencies and
building the institutional capacity of NEDLAC.
We commit to the following:
- To improve our participation and coordination. This will
include
- improving the seniority of our representatives;
- proper preparation and mandates for meetings;
- better coordination between chamber delegates, the overall
convenor and delegates to EXCO and MANCO,
- Chambers will be asked to review its programme; assess gaps in
the programme; review coordination; identify strategic issues that
should be placed on the programme. On that basis develop a
strategic plan for the coming 12 months.
- Labour will develop a panel of skilled negotiators that can be
deployed on taskteams to develop agreements.
- We will host two major policy and review conferences a year, at
which we can evaluate the impact of our work, develop proposals
fore tabling at Nedlac and ensure information-sharing between the
Federations will be improved. We will produce reviews of Nedlac
from a labour perspective for consideration at such
conferences.
- We will work much closer with the community constituency as we
share a constituency.
Improving our representivity function
We are currently represented either by union delegates, or
experts, in a wide range of institutions, or have persons from or
connected to the labour movement, nominated to serve on statutory
bodies, and these include
- Nedlac and all its structures and task teams
- the CCMA Governing Board
- Employment Conditions Commission
- The National Productivity Institute
- SETAS
- the National Skills Authority
- ITAC
- the Unemployment Insurance Board
- COIDA
- Commission for Employment Equity
- the IDC
- Proudly SA
- the MLC
- Presidential Working Group
- the Labour Court Rules Board and
- the Councils of various universities.
In addition, labour participates in the governance structures of
the ILO and sends delegations to the WTO.
We commit to improving representation in all bodies where
organised labour has a presence.
As an immediate step, we will develop an audit of all structures
on which labour delegates serve, either in a representative or
expert capacity. The National Labour Office will further develop an
oversight role, tracking meetings, attendance and outcomes, for
consideration by the constituent federations.
All labour delegates will be required to complete a standard
report on all meetings held.
Labour delegates to Nedlac meetings will be requested to hold
regular caucuses, to develop common positions.
Implementation Plan
We will develop a detailed plan of meetings and activities to
take the above commitments forward. We now set out the primary
meetings for 2006 that will allow us to achieve these objectives,
in an annexure, to be updated regularly.
Conclusion
We commit to full implementation of the agreements reached at
the Growth and Development Summit, and to ensure that all
constituencies do likewise.
We now take forward this set of commitments as the guide to our
work in the period ahead.
Format of standard report
Nature of meeting: ____________________________ Date:
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Present from
labour________________________________________________
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Absent from
labour________________________________________________
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Agenda ________________________________________________
(in order of
priority) ________________________________________________
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Main decisions
taken________________________________________________
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Matters requiring mandates
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Key documents
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Tabled
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Date of next meeting___________ Report author
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Ph __________________ email___________________________