Communications, research and capacity-building

Communications

Nedlac's ability to communicate the growing number of issues on its agenda and provideinformation on these to its constituencies, the public and media has become increasinglyimportant in the year under review. In order to serve this need, Nedlac has builtsubstantially on the communication and information provision tools set in place during thefirst year of its existence. These include:

• The setting up of an extensive database.
• The Nedlac homepage on the Internet's World-Wide Web. This has become an important tool in disseminating information about Nedlac, its media releases, reports and other publications, to members of the public, both locally and internationally.
• Nedlac News Update, a monthly newsletter aimed at providing information on the progress made with the issues on the chambers' agendas. This publication is distributed via e-mail, fax and post, and can also be read on the Nedlac homepage.
• The South African Labour Bulletin's regular two-monthly "Focus on Nedlac" also details progress with the issues on the Nedlac agenda and gives readers more information about negotiators' positions on certain issues.
• Regular news releases to the media at strategic points during negotiations in Nedlac were issued throughout the year. While these releases are only sent to the media, they are also available to the public on the Nedlac homepage.

Research

Nedlac's research activities fall into two categories: research projects, which arein-depth studies aimed at providing new insight or knowledge on an issue; and briefingpapers, which are aimed at providing an overview of a topic and summarising existingresearch on an issue.

A social and economic overview is published as part of the annual report and providesan integrated overview of socio-economic trends that is easily accessed by thesocio-economic policymakers who participate in discussions at Nedlac.

Following the release of last year's overview, there was concern among theconstituencies about statistics on trade and employment in South Africa. Discussions werearranged between the constituenices and the compilers of these statistics, namely, theCentral Statistical Service (CSS), the South African Reserve Bank and the Department ofLabour. This has led to the establishment of theme committees by the Statistics Council inwhich the Nedlac social partners will participate.

A number of research projects were completed in 1996. These include:

• An overview of the 1996 collective-bargaining round, which focuses on wage agreements in key economic sectors.
• The completion of a number of JGF cluster studies aimed at improving competitiveness by fostering cluster coherence, including the footwear, ceramics and electronics sectors.
• The completion of research on the level of expenditure on vocational training by the private and public sectors in South Africa, including private colleges and technikons.
• Research into the various options for a social plan, undertaken by the Nedlac secretariat, was presented to the social plan task team. This study looked at the international experience in respect of the social plan, legislative options for introducing social plan agreements and mechanisms for financing social plan funds.

The following research projects are currently in progress:

• The consequences of South Africa's changing trade relationships for employment (Trade and Industry Chamber).
• Strategies for raising the rate of private savings in South Africa (Public Finance and Monetary Policy Chamber).
• Strategies for accelerated investment in socio-economic infrastructure (Public Finance and Monetary Policy Chamber).

Briefing papers have been commissioned on the following issues:

• International experience of the period of appointment of Labour Court judges (Labour Market Chamber).
• International debate on labour standards and trade agreements (Trade and Industry Chamber).
• An overview of proposed changes to South Africa's water laws (Development Chamber).
• Status report on housing delivery (Executive Council).

Research on Nedlac

During the past year there has been growing interest from researchers and studentsworking on the South African experience of economic and social dialogue. Researchcurrently underway includes:

• A post-doctoral study based at Harvard University.
• A PhD thesis based at Cambridge University.
• A Masters thesis based at University of Witwatersrand.

Capacity-building

An increasing area of importance, and one that has developed substantially sinceNedlac's inception, is that of capacity-building. In addition to the allocation forcapacity support in the Nedlac budget, additional funding has been secured from donors,bringing the total amount of funds leveraged for capacity-building to more than R5 millionfor the past two years.

Some R4 112 000 has been managed directly by Nedlac. Of this, R1 550 000 comes fromNedlac's allocation, and R2 562 000 has been provided for trade union education on theLabour Relations Act by the African-American Labour Centre.

These funds have been allocated for various workshops targeting Nedlac delegates,leadership and members of constituencies. Monies have also been provided for theproduction of training videos and training manuals, and also to obtain technical inputsinto the policy formulation process.

The capacity fund has been used to build the administrative capacity of parties,financial support for staff and other resources, and has been used by labour and communityto set up constituency offices. Nafcoc and Fabcos have also received support forinfrastructure.

In addition, R1 million was made available by the National Productivity Institutetowards the nine provincial workshops conducted in phase one of the Workplace Challenge.The JGF has also put aside R500 000 for capacity-building.

Capacity-building activities

1. The LRA: African-American Labour Centre project

The project was administered by Nedlac, with each trade union federation responsible for designing and running its own programmes after receiving money from Nedlac.

Workshops and training sessions were held in each province for trade union organisers and educators, as well as for senior shopstewards, by Cosatu, Nactu and Fedsal (now Fedusa). Train-the-trainer workshops were used to equip senior union members to educate and train members at local level. A series of six 20-minute videos on different aspects of the Act, plus an accompanying resource book, were produced. The videos are on the following aspects of the Act:

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  • How the LRA was made.
  • Institutions and procedures.
  • Dismissals.
  • Retrenchments.
  • Strikes.
  • Organisational rights.

LRA training

	Nactu	Fedsal	Cosatu
Total number of shopstewards trained	746	832	5 960
Total number of organisers/trainers trained		38	350
Number of workshops/training sessions	21	19	17
Training manuals		1	1
Training videos			6

2. Nafcoc and Fabcos: LRA training support

Recognising that it is not only trade unions that require training on the LRA, R500 000 was made available to Nafcoc and Fabcos for the training of small employers. Several training workshops were held around the country.

LRA training for small employers

	Nafcoc	Fabcos
Total number of participants (small employers)	295	850
Total number of workshops	8	13
Training manuals	1	1

3. Community workshops

The community constituency made use of the capacity fund to hold several planning workshops at a leadership level.

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  • Four workshops.
  • A total of 160 participants at leadership level.
  • Planning sessions on policy issues on the Nedlac agenda.

4. Other capacity-building activities

Support has been given to the National Rural Development Forum and initiatives have also been taken to revive the participation of the youth in Nedlac. In the latter case a process to establish a national youth council has begun.

A declaration was adopted at a meeting of national youth organisations.

Declaration adopted by youth organisations

We, national youth organisations gathered here at a meeting facilitated by Nedlac on 19 April 1997, comprising representatives of political, religious, student, women, cultural, business and youth non-governmental organisations, hereby commit ourselves to work for the establishment of a representative, autonomous structure of youth in civil society.

Such a structure should have as its main focus the empowerment and development of all South Africa's youth.

Capacity-building is an ongoing programme and future activities are being planned. Project for participants in the Public Finance and Monetary Policy Chamber will be prioritised in 1997.