Research

Socio-economic development trends bulletin

In the year under review, the Management Committee agreed that Nedlac should publish a quarterly bulletin of socio-economic development trends. Unfortunately, due to various delays, the bulletin did not appear in the first quarter of the year, but a lot of work has gone into laying the foundation for a good series.

Roundtables

On 5 April 2000, Nedlac launched its 'Expanding Dialogue' series. This series aims to provide constituency representatives the opportunity to engage in informal discussion amongst themselves and with specialists, who do not ordinarily attend Nedlac meetings, on topics that are of relevance to the pursuit of economic growth and social equity. The meetings held thus far have proved to be very popular, well attended, with valuable debate and discussions taking place.

Five roundtable discussions were held in the financial year under consideration.

The first seminar's topic was "Contribution of Stakeholder Involvement to Economic and Social Development". The speakers were:

• Prof. E. Webster, director of the Sociology of Work Unit, Wits University.
• Mr. S. Morotoba, Executive Officer of the National Skills Authority.
• Mr. M. Clark, Chief Executive Officer of the KwaZulu-Natal Economic Council.
• Mr. P. van Niekerk, Executive Director, Human Resources of the Dorbyl Group.

The second roundtable series focussed on " Impediments to Infrastructural Delivery" with the following speakers:

• K. Gordhan, City Manager of Johannesburg

• G. Moloi, Chief director, department of Provincial and Local Government.

• E. Hassan, Researcher, National Labour and Economic Development Institute.

The third roundtable was on "Globalisation, Corporatism and Workplace Change: with the followings speakers:

• Manuel Castells, Professor of Sociology and Planning at the University of California, Berkley.
• Martin Carnoy, Professor of Education and Economics at Stanford University.
• Ebrahim Patel, general secretary of the South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union.
• Zav Rustomjee, special advisor to the Minister of Trade and Industry.

The Fourth Roundtable discussion focussed on "South Africa's Economic Futures Prospects and Policies" with the following speakers:

• Dr. P. Pillay, independent economist.
• J. Cargill and K. Heese, Business Map SA.
• S. Friedman, Center for Policy Studies.

The 5th roundtable was on the social partners' experiences in designing, implementing and managing programmes to deal with the effect of HIV / AIDS in our communities and workplaces. It was held on Thursday 16 November 2000 with the following speakers:

• Dr. N. Simelele (Represented by Ms Ria Schoeman), Chief Director, Department of Health.

• Dr. F. Mansoor, National Coordinator, Sactwu's HIV / AIDS Programme.

• Mr. R. A. Seiler, Executive Director, Human Resources, Ford Motor Company.

• Ms. A. Meeson, Independent Journalist who has written numerous case studies on the management of HIV / AIDS.

Briefing session

Stats SA gave a briefing session to Nedlac constituencies on the South African Labour Market.

Black Economic Empowerment Report process

In line with the Nedlac 2000 declaration, in which economic empowerment was identified as one of the national priorities, Nedlac set up a task team made of senior constituency members. It is tasked with co-ordinating engagement with the Black Economic Empowerment Commission (BEECOM) and constituencies' inputs on BEE. Nedlac hosted Cyril Ramaphosa of the BEECOM to give a briefing on the preliminary BEECOM report. Nedlac intends to invite the commission to make another presentation on its final report.

Task team delegates

Business

Community

Government

Government (DTI)

Labour

Workplace Challenge Research

Nedlac continued to co-ordinate the research related to the Workplace Challenge, which is being implemented by the National Productivity Institute. Two research reports were released during the financial year, whilst bi-monthly research updates were e-mailed to the project team and participating companies.

E-mail research briefings

The research section provided occasional briefings on newly released statistics and research to people who subscribed to an email database.

Census 2001 National Advisory Panel

Nedlac's researcher was a member of the Stats SA advisory panel for Census 2001.

Publications

Social Dialogue in South Africa. Published as an Occasional Paper, ILO. Geneva.

The State of Social Dialogue in South Africa Published in the ILO journal of Workers Education.

On-Going Research

The Research Department has commenced research on the following:

1. State of Social Dialogue in SADC
2. Social Dialogue in South Africa
3. Experiences of Nedlac's constituencies in the implementation of HIV-AIDS and international best practice.