Nedlac Executive Councilratifies five new agreements
Friday, 29 August 1997

Employment creation, housing delivery, enhanced workplace efficiency and productivity, the provision of water to all South Africans and research into international competitiveness all featured prominently onthe agenda of Nedlac's Executive Council Meeting held in Johannesburg today (29 August1997). Four agreements, including one which recommended the establishment of amultimillion rand national fund for research into workplace change, efficiency and equity in a changing international environment from 1997 until 2001, were ratified at today's meeting.

This brings the total number of agreements reached by Nedlac since its inception two-and-a-half years ago to 24.

Two special sessions were held, namely, onhousing and employment creation. The housing special session was addressed by Minister of Housing Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele, who gave a detailed overview of and answered questions on the current state of housing delivery. A special committee of Nedlac's Development Chamber was tasked to develop concrete initiatives to enhance mass delivery of housing with the aim of strengthening the way in which subsidies lead to the construction of houses and to leverage private-sector resources for housing delivery.

The special session on employment creation focused on the process to be followed to ensure a successful jobs summit. The socialpartners emphasised the urgency of agreeing an employment strategy, but stressed that the summit should not be an event to begin discussions but rather the culmination of aninvestigative and consensus-seeking process. Concrete and viable programmes must bedelivered at the summit. It was decided that the Nedlac Management Committee would urgently consider a process towards the summit.

Also formally ratified by the Executive Councilwas the declaration adopted at the second Nedlac summit held earlier this year, whichbinds representatives from business, government, labour and community in the pursuit oftheir objective of seeking collective answers to the challenges facing South Africa through constructive dialogue and problem-solving.

The four reports ratified are:

The water services bill

A report on the agreement reached on the waterservices bill was tabled. This matter was introduced in Nedlac in May this year. This bill seeks to secure the right of access to basic water supply and sanitation for all SouthAfricans and to regulate the provision of water services. As a result of discussions in a Nedlac task team, several amendments were made to the bill to address concerns raised bythe parties. The amended bill subsequently entered the parliamentary process, with which Nedlac continues to interact in order to address the social partners' concerns.

The Workplace Challenge

The second phase of the Workplace Challengeproject was agreed to. The Department of Trade and Industry has made an amount of R13million available for this phase, which will start at the beginning of September. The second phase will involve stakeholders in specific industrial sectors in a process of interaction, analysis, planning and action to enhance productivity in order to becompetitive in the global economy. Minister of Trade and Industry Alec Erwin remarked that the Workplace Challenge project constituted "an excellent, extensive and interesting process" which should focus on results.

The fund for research into international competitiveness

As a result of today's agreement on theestablishment of this fund, several million rand will be made available for research aimedat addressing workplace change, efficiency and equity in a changing international economic environment. This fund will replace the Japanese Grant Fund, which is to be wound up atthe end of this year, and will provide funds for research until 2001.

The mine health and safety amendment bill

After the promulgation of the Mine Health andSafety Act in June last year, business and labour in the mining industry appointed a technical committee to explore ways of ensuring the effective enforcement of the Actwithout resorting to the criminal procedures against employers that were provided for inthe Act. The bill provides for such procedures to be replaced by administrative penalties.The Executive Council today agreed to support the amendment bill that was subsequently drafted.

Jayendra Naidoo, executive director of Nedlac, remarked at the end of the meeting that "an advance towards resolving someof the most pressing issues facing all South Africans has been made, in particular onhousing, employment and workplace change. This strengthens our resolve to persevere,through social dialogue, with the other critical issues outstanding in labour andmacro-policy."