Nedlac Executive Council ratifies recommendations to enhance the Nedlac process

Friday, February 28, 1997

The Nedlac Executive Council today considered a set of recommendations aimed at enhancing the Nedlac process and agenda. This follows a resolution adopted by the first Nedlac Summit in 1996, which, among others, established an agenda for a thorough review of the process of social dialogue and agreement-making in Nedlac, and to build confidence and trust in the Nedlac process at all levels.

As a result of the Summit resolution, Nedlac's Management Committee established a drafting committee to review the Nedlac process, to strategise on the coordination and management of the chambers' agendas, and to consider the question of an over arching national agreement as indicated in the various Nedlac constituencies' policy documents andthe Labour Market Commission's recommendations.

The drafting committee has considered the context of the Nedlac process and some of the themes that have emerged from these discussions include a recognition that:

• Social dialogue on policy development has become established in South Africa at various levels. Nedlac increasingly provides a mechanism for coordinating such dialogue and should continue to play this role to ensure that there is not a duplication of initiatives.
• The Nedlac process is not confined to agreement-making but, in fact, constitutes a "system of dialogue". Its work straddles many different types of activities: information exchange and briefings, pre-negotiation investigations and preparatory work, negotiations on the principles of policy and/or legislation, detailed negotiations, ongoing interaction with implementation and reviewing how decisions are effected, and the promotion and support of participatory campaigns.
• Each chamber has developed different styles/methods of operation, based on the nature of the issues it deals with. Each issue should have a specific process defined. The first step in considering an issue should be process design, with an acknowledgement that there is no one standard process to be followed.
• The leadership of each of the parties needs to invest effort in developing the capacity of parties to participate in Nedlac, recognising that capacity-building is essential to the success of the Nedlac process. Types of capacity required include administrative/infrastructural capacity, economic/policy capacity and representivity (i.e., the capacity of constituencies to obtain mandates and to effectively report back to their membership).

Recommendations made by the drafting committee thus far include:

• The Executive Council conducting a "clearing-house" activity twice a year, which would entail an identification of the negotiations agenda for the chambers to pursue in a six-month period. This process started at today's Executive Council meeting.
• Six-monthly senior-level chamber policy sessions to give strategic direction to the work of the chambers, as well as an annual integrated policy session comprising the government ministers responsible for Nedlac and senior representatives of other constituencies.
• Careful planning and strategising ahead of all Executive Council meetings, and an increased role for the Management Committee. The latter structure should become an effective process committee which should consider substantive reports on the chambers' progress and, through its deliberations, shape the Nedlac agenda.
• Addressing the need to build the capacity of all parties in Nedlac to accommodate the loss of leadership and capacity in labour and the community, and to regenerate new capacity in all constituencies.
• A more structured relationship with Parliament, as well as clarity on the demarcation and roles of the Nedlac process in relation to the parliamentary process.
• Government's legislative and policy programmes should be placed before Nedlac at an early stage in order to timeously link government processes to the Nedlac process.
• Proper coordination with other institutions to avoid a duplication of work should be done on an issue-by-issue basis to determine the respective roles of each body in the consideration of any particular issue.