Tackling workplace change

Through the Workplace Challenge project, Nedlac is providing a platform for workers and management to cooperate in tackling the issue of productivity together.

The Workplace Challenge is a project of the Trade and Industry Chamber of Nedlac. It was established in 1996 to assist South African industry to meet the challenge of our re-entry into the global market. It aims to improve the economic performance and production of local firms and to ensure high investment and economic growth. As economist Dave Lewis points out: "Growth is not just about macroeconomic management. Improvements in productivity at industry and shop-floor level are also significant."

Lewis says the project is significant. "This programme says that individual workplaces are key sites for influencing economic performance. It has also started to move social partnerships away from simply focusing on redistribution and shows that we need to cooperate on growing the economy, if there is to be redistribution of gains and wealth from growth."

To increase wealth and employment in the country, South Africa has to export more manufactured goods and increase investment in the country. The success of this will depend on the competitiveness of our industries. Local firms or industries must have a competitive advantage. They must be able to produce good-quality, low-cost or innovative products.

Increasing productivity is crucial to addressing the challenges of opening up the South African economy to foreign competitors. And labour and business need to meet these challenges together.

The Workplace Challenge encourages the social partners in Nedlac - government, labour and business - to cooperate and work together on improving the performance of local companies so that they can remain viable in this changing and competitive environment.

The Workplace Challenge project is organised into different phases. Phase one was completed at the end of 1996, and phase two has been agreed to by Nedlac. The Department of Trade and Industry has made an amount of R13 million available for phase two, which started in September this year.

Setting the agenda for workplace change

Phase one was designed to involve broad participation from the key players in each province. Nine workshops were held in all provinces except Free State, with about 1 000 people attending the workshops.

In the workshops a number of issues around productivity were discussed, including: the need for a definition of productivity; the distribution of productivity gains; training and development of staff; and the introduction of new machinery.

Phase 1 sensitised people to the problems of productivity, competitiveness and employment creation in the different sectors of the economy. But a very important aspect was to develop a common language and understanding of what productivity is.

Productivity has been a highly controversial and contested term. There has been a tendency in the past to blame workers for the low levels of productivity.

Herbert Mkhize, a labour representative at Nedlac, explains: "Productivity in the eyes of employers has been defined as labour productivity. Other key issues like capital productivity, managerial inefficiencies and the effective use of raw materials were always left out of the equation. Productivity was about workers working harder. But productivity can't mean that workers dig their own graves."

Lewis agrees: "In the past workers saw productivity as another word for oppressive work practices, cutting jobs, or a way to make them work harder. Management saw unions as obstacles to enhancing productivity. Phase 1 of the Workplace Challenge Project broke down this view."

Business felt that labour was unwilling to discuss productivity and competitiveness.

Mike MacDonald, a business representative at Nedlac, attended two workshops. "What impressed me was the willingness of unions to cooperate. We moved away from the old acrimony of accusing each other of a lack of productivity. In fact, workers were correct to say that their productivity had improved while capital's productivity has not been good," he said.

Developing targeted programmes

Phase two began in September and will take about a year to complete. It will consist of programmes in selected sectors which will develop ways to improve workplace cooperation and performance. Stakeholders will interact, analyse, plan and then put into action strategies to enhance productivity in a particular sector. These programmes will also act as role models for the broader economy.

Phase one identified the problem; phase two will now work out how to deal with it.

MacDonald explains: "This is the practical stage involving real businesses trying to find solutions. We are now going to bring talk to the company-level and build a framework for improving productivity across sectors."

The departments of Trade and Industry and Labour will cooperate in the second phase of the project. The Department of Trade and Industry has made R13 million of funds available for the process.

Shan Ramburuth, coordinator of Nedlac's Trade and Industry Chamber, says that the purpose of phase two is to "help revitalise industry in South Africa to achieve greater levels of efficiency. It will also demonstrate models of cooperation between workers and management at firm-level."

Maud Dlomo, another Trade and Industry Chamber coordinator, explains what will happen: "In the second phase, we will run programmes in selected sectors to demonstrate how the workplace can be changed to be competitive. In the pilot project we will select four to five sectors to participate in the project."

Each initiative will either result in a workplace-change agreement or a process towards reaching such an agreement. Stakeholders will be committed to a plan of action and to an ongoing structured relationship to address workplace issues.

Phase two will also help participants to draw from existing assistance measures and programmes provided by government and other bodies, for example, supply-side measures, which provide incentives for industrial development, training resources or technology incentives.

Lewis says that "phase two will translate ideas into realities in specific sectors and regions, and use these as pilots to demonstrate the effects for the rest of the economy".

Minister of Trade and Industry Alec Erwin remarked that the Workplace Challenge project is an "excellent, extensive and interesting process" which should focus on results.

SELECTING THE SECTORS

A crucial stage in the second phase of the Workplace Challenge project is the selection of the sectors for the pilot programme. The sectors have not yet been chosen, but key principles for selecting them have been agreed on. These are:

Macro and industrial-strategy issues:

• The sector or industry should have potential to grow.
• It should have a competitive advantage in both the domestic and the global market.
• The sector should show the potential to generate sustainable employment.
• If the sector is facing problems arising from the recent liberalisation of the economy, such problems should be of such a nature that they could be addressed. For instance, an industry/sector should indicate that it can survive without government support.

Micro and industrial-relations issues:

• The sector should have sound industrial relations.
• Business and labour should be committed or willing to commit themselves to the workplace-change process.
• The sector should be committed to skills development and workplace change.
• One of the major objectives of the initiative is to facilitate access to government's support schemes, and voluntary requests will be considered.
• The outcome should benefit the employers, workers and the economy as a whole.
• The pilot project should have a demonstration and a multiplier effect on the industry as a whole. It should also serve as a catalyst for other sectors.