By Oupa Lehulere
JOHANNESBURG — At the end of its executive committee meeting in June, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) announced a series of regional and national strikes as part of its campaign to have its demands around the Basic Conditions of Employment Bill (BCEB) passed into law.
COSATU has announced five regional strikes between August 4 and August 21. Besides these actions, there will be two national 24-hour strikes to coincide with the sittings of the parliamentary committee that will be considering the bill.
The threatened industrial action comes in the wake of the 24-hour national strike on June 2. Angered by a court ruling that forced cancellation of COSATU's planned marches on May 12, COSATU pulled out hundreds of thousands of workers.
The BCEB includes some significant gains for workers. All workers, including farm and domestic workers, are now covered by the law. Hours of work for agriculture, security and domestic workers have been brought into line with other workers, even though in some cases the reduction of the hours will be phased in.
However, there remain major areas of contention around the bill. Negotiations between labour, employers and the government in the National Development and Labour Council broke down over four issues:
- <~>COSATU is demanding that maternity leave be six months, of which four months will be paid, and that pregnant workers' jobs be guaranteed.
- <~>COSATU wants a 40-hour work week, phased in over a period of, at most, five years.
- <~>It demands that Sunday work be paid at double the normal weekday rate.
- <~>Most significantly, COSATU is opposed to a provision in the BCEB which allows employers and workers to negotiate worse conditions than those in the act.
Notwithstanding the fact that the BCEB was approved by the ANC-dominated cabinet, COSATU has been at pains to emphasise that its strikes are not directed against the government, but against the employers.
COSATU called meetings with the ANC in an attempt to reach agreement on the inclusion of COSATU's demands in the final legislation.
Although COSATU is formally in alliance the ANC, employers have the government's economic program — Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) — on their side.
The labour minister's wide discretionary powers to vary labour standards downwards, conferred by the BCEB, were already mooted in GEAR. According to GEAR, the minister's discretion to extend or not extend agreements should be broadened. Variations on conditions through collective bargaining are an integral aspect of a system of "regulated [labour] flexibility", GEAR argues.
The ANC, for its part, is under pressure not to retreat from GEAR. In its latest Quarterly Bulletin, the Reserve Bank fired a broadside in favour of business in the BCEB war. According to the bank, the implementation of COSATU's proposals could lead to "an increase in the wage and non-wage costs of labour, [and] it could have adverse implications for the overall level of formal-sector employment".
Throughout the struggle, employers have focused on the supposed implications of COSATU's demands on existing jobs and future job creation. According to reports in Business Day, South Africa's main financial daily, employers are questioning the gains that have been extended to most workers in the bill.
Against this, COSATU has argued that it is the government's overall economic policy that is primarily responsible for the lack of jobs and for job losses. The employers' preference for capital-intensive production has also come under fire.
According to COSATU, basic labour standards, a minimum wage and training will enhance productivity and therefore lead to job creation.
As the national strikes approach, the Ministry of Labour is frantically trying to broker an agreement acceptable to both employers and COSATU. The signs are that it will not be easy.
COSATU general secretary Sam Shilowa wrote recently, "Even though I do not believe that we will lose on this one, I also believe that it is far better to lose with dignity than settle for an unacceptable compromise ... I would be prepared to go to workers and explain that, as with GEAR, the employers have scored a significant victory."
The developing rift with the ANC government was evident at the 10th Annual Labour Law Conference, at which COSATU clashed with labour minister Tito Mboweni and warned that his threat to withdraw the BCEB from parliament would be a reward for the intransigence of employers.
Should this occur, COSATU will have to ask itself how the alliance with the ANC can survive such an employers' victory.
[Oupa Lehulere is an educator at Khanya College, a labour movement support organisation in Johannesburg, and a contributor to Links, the international journal of socialist renewal.]