Speech by The Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana

Gallagher Estate, Midrand 2 October 1999

Chairperson
Ladies and gentlemen
Colleagues
Comrades and friends

I would like convey my gratitude to you all todayfor your participation in this important event - giving up time on a Saturday meanssacrificing valuable personal time! I would like to believe that this sacrifice will bejustified in the quality of the outcomes we achieve and in the level of commitment securedto deliver not only on the substance but also on the spirit of our agreements.

I welcome this time to reflect on the gains wehave made and the challenges that still lie ahead. I welcome too the opportunity toreflect on the way forward.

Let us begin with the gains. The highlight of1998/1999 for Nedlac was undoubtedly the

Presidential Jobs Summit. Thirty five agreementswere reached - some of which represented the culmination of years of negotiation. Theseinclude the Social Plan and the lead project on housing.

A review of the implementation of the agreementsreveals areas of real success. There is progress in the implementation of all three phasesof the Social Plan for example. And there is now final agreement on the key projects to besupported by the Business Trust and implementation can now begin in earnest - in educationas well as in the tourism sector. Government has committed a billion rand to povertyrelief programmes. The Housing Project reports detailed plans for three pilots, varioussectoral summits are to be held, including in the agricultural sectors, and sectorprofiles are being prepared in a range of other areas. Thousands of short-term jobs havebeen created by the Working for Water Programme and the Community Based Public WorksProgramme. And more sustainable jobs are opening up around the Integrated ProvincialProjects - in Coega, Lubombo and the Wild Coast for instance.

Over and above the Job Summit agreements,important progress has been recorded in other areas as well. Agreements such as the codesof good practice on handling cases of sexual harassment, on dismissals based onoperational requirements and on the Skills Development and Levies Acts and EmploymentEquity Act have laid a very sound basis for remedying problems inherited from the past.

I could go on - there were the studies linked tothe Fund for Research into Industrial Development Growth and Equity which looked at waysto improve the functioning of the South African economy. And then there is the WorkplaceChallenge initiative which has been implemented in 17 factories in three sectors.

All of these gains must be celebrated. But weremain with massive unemployment and poverty and we cannot even yet claim that we havebroken the back of the problem. The growth of formal sector employment is far too slow andthe investment that we need to underpin such growth has fallen in recent time. Clearly,collectively, we as social partners have not yet managed to secure the requisite mix ofincentives or the necessary promotion of policy or programmes to see the kind of massivejob expansion so desperately needed. Indeed, in some key areas such as macro-economic andtrade policy we have not yet even reached agreement.

I think we all appreciate that we need to get notonly individual initiatives right, but we need to ensure that they reinforce one another.And this means getting macro-economic, trade and industry, labour market and socialpolicies working together. To date we have tended to look at these somewhat separately,but the challenge now is to fill in the gaps and to ensure that they work together for thegood of all South Africans.

But the challenge is not only about the substanceof the agreements and their linkages. It is also about the level of commitment to theagreements we have reached. I would like to reflect on this for a moment, in particular onthe area of social dialogue and partnership.

Our institutions of social dialogue have beenparaded internationally as examples of inclusive and consultative policy making. This isan important achievement. However, our constant reference to this often hides some seriousconcerns that need to be addressed.

Undoubtedly, dialogue is a fundamental in ademocracy. It is the means to define the socio-economic and political agenda to deliverour vision of reconstruction and development. However, there are extreme differences aboutthe best path to achieve our objectives. In the battle of wits and flexing of muscle thattakes place, compromises emerge. But, for some, compromises are perceived as defeat. Theybelieve that they have "lost" and that it is therefore necessary to pursuealternative avenues to "win their positions". The result is that any commitmentto the broader vision of reconstruction and development is subordinated to their sectionalinterest. It is on this that I would like to focus. I do this by posing questions that Ibelieve deserve an answer from all of us.

The first of these questions must be whether itis correct for any of the social partners in the project of reconstruction and developmentto act in a manner that undermines the pursuit of this agenda in order to advancesectional interests. For instance, is it correct that some of us who profess to be thechampions of measures to promote investment use every available opportunity to badmouththe country? And who paint an exaggerated picture of highly unfavourable conditions forinvestors, both domestic and international, whether this relates to crime, violence,labour market policies, corruption in the public service or progress regarding socio -political transformation? The impression this creates is that sectional interests, unableto win the debate in the many fora such as NEDLAC, parliament and other institutions ofdemocracy, now resort to mobilising international capital to adopt a negative view of theprogress made in transforming this country. Is this social partnership? How does thiscontribute to reconstruction and development?

Similar questions can and must be asked of thelabour movement. To what extent are the actions of unions in pursuit of the particularinterests of their own members consistent with the pursuit of these objectives? In caseswhere there is a kneejerk resort to confrontation, this often casts doubt in the publicmind as to the efficacy and effectiveness of the institutions of social dialogue. The samecan be said of some formations in the community constituency.

The escalating levels of person days lost due torising levels of industrial conflict can only be a cause for concern. Can the resultantloss of production and its accompanying impact on the economy; the message of a highlyunstable and adversarial labour market; and other socio-political consequences be said torepresent a positive contribution to social dialogue and partnership? While the causepursued may be laudable, the question remains as to how these approaches contribute to thereconstruction and development of our society.

How do such actions as the disruption of classesby the various student formations and sometimes by teachers and academic staff, in anenvironment where institutions of dialogue and dispute resolution are available,contribute to the reconstruction and development of a culture of learning which is socentral to our human resource development strategies? Is it correct that we should employthese methods of yesteryear, even when they evidently stand to threaten the project ofreconstruction and development? Is it right that our civic formations should locatethemselves in an oppositionist role in the context of the daunting challenges of localgovernment? How does such an approach contribute to social partnership?

These questions may be mischievously interpretedto represent government impatience with anything that opposes its policies; or indeed,worse still, an attempt to curtail the constitutionally guaranteed rights to free speechand expression. There can be nothing further from the truth. These questions represent achallenge to social partners to undertake a thoroughgoing introspection in order to ensurethat we do not lose sight of our central objective of reconstructing and developing thissociety.

social partners to under-take a thoroughgoingintrospection in order to ensure that we do not lose sight of our central objective ofreconstructing and developing this society. Indeed if we are to achieve this objective,then we surely must want to persuade business to desist from what some people describe asa post-apartheid economic sanctions campaign, albeit not publicly declared. Or indeed whatsome describe as permanent revolution fought using tactics of yesteryear even whenchangedconditions demand constructive engagement. The choice is ours.

Is it not the case that NEDLACin its programme of activities should review these developments in order to promote thecredibility of social dialogue and ensure that we retain our focus on the vision ofreconstruction and development? I believe it is. Unless and until we do this, our searchfor economic growth, employment creation, poverty alleviation and social and politicalstability will remain a mirage.

The way to do this, I believe, is to move awayfrom generalisations and to move towards the more precise definition of those areas wherewe still disagree and then chip away at them until we achieve"sufficient consensus". We also need to confirm those areas where we agree.These negotiations need to prioritise those areas most likely to impact on investment andjob growth consistent with our reconstruction and development vision  even if theseare the very issues that we have previously put on hold because we could not find a waythrough. We also need to ensure that the various policies are mutually reinforcing. Thisis what government understands to be the "tough employment accord" that isdemanded of us as social partners.

This is the approach that we have adopted in thelabour market arena. My department and I have had wide-ranging discussions with our socialpartners. We have established that all agree that the broad architecture of the policy, ascaptured by the legislation, is accepted. However there remain areas of concern - such as section 189 in the Labour Relations Act, probationperiods and issues about the applicability of some sections to small business. We havecommitted ourselves to a process of interaction on these specific points. At the sametime, we have agreed that the implementation of legislation should proceed apace.

In conclusion Chairperson,

Our President has been exhorting Africa to commititself to multi-party democracy. He has most recently madethis call in Dar-es- Salaam,Tanzania this week  in a country which has for decades been associated with the callfor one-party states and in a context where many leaders in Africa have not been elected . By demonstrating thislevel of courage, President Mbeki is showing the kind ofleadership that the continent has been crying for for a long time.

I wish today to call on you, the social partnersin South Africa, to follow his lead and accept the rights and responsibilities which gowith social partnership. To do so is to commit ourselves to building a shared vision forthe reconstruction and development of our country and then taking steps to achieve it inreality. We need to build our own organisations' capacity to deliver on agreements wereach and to commit ourselves to represent the agreements to theWorld. If we do not, we will be as guilty as thosegovernment and rebel groups who talk of democracy, sign ceasefire agreements and then proceed to take up arms!