Volume 10, No.1 - February 2001

Never Again

What are sector job summits

By Neva Makgetla, COSATU Fiscal, Monetary and Public-sector Policy Coordinator

COSATU's demand for tripartite sector job summits is our response to the unemployment crisis facing South African Workers have always faced high levels of unemployment but recent years have seen the loss of hundreds of thousands of formal jobs, with the biggest losses in mining, manufacturing and the public sector.

This devastating trend has worsened poverty and inequality. Unless we can reverse it, millions of our people face a future of insecurity and want.

We see sector job summits as a critical step to develop more effective strategies for employment creation in all major economic sectors. In 1998, the Presidential Jobs Summit declaration called for sector job summits to "facilitate the development of industrial strategies for stakeholders, designed to expand output and create or save jobs." Following our General Strike on 10 May 2000, the NEDLAC constituencies reaffirmed the urgency of sector job summits.

COSATU wants sector jobs summits to:

• Save jobs in the short term,
• Create jobs in the short and medium term,
• Improve the quality of employment,
• Contribute to development of an industry policy, and
• Strengthen our organisations and centralised bargaining.

It is important that the proposals we put forward to sector job summits meet the needs of the working class. That means that sectoral strategies must also:

• Support skills development,
• Help meet the needs of working class families by providing cheaper food and other basic goods as well as housing and infrastructure,
• Develop solidarity in the sense of improving the position of women, supporting rural development and strengthening regional development,
• Democratise the economy and the State by empowering workers and increasing collective ownership as well as democratising government departments and strengthening labour's representation in statutory bodies and councils.

Sector job summits should focus on policy and not bargaining issues. They should make the cake bigger, as opposed to dividing up the cake. They should not just relocate problems that can be dealt with in a bargaining council, since that could undermine the council.

Sector job summits have so far taken place in gold mining, clothing and textiles and the public service. In each sector, unions made important gains in finding ways to retain and create quality jobs.

COSATU expects to hold summits in other sectors by the middle of next year. A first step was to define the sectors to have summits. The aim is to ensure that all the major sectors of the economy are covered, without fragmenting our efforts too much. So the sectors where summits are proposed are not the same as the industries identified by unions for organisational purposes.

For each sector, we identified a lead union. In most, other unions will also have some input. For instance, in communications the lead union is CWU. But NUMSA must also contribute because it organises plants that provide inputs for telecommunications.

The sectors, and lead unions, are:

• Food and agriculture - FAWU;
• Auto and engineering - NUMSA;
• Petrochemical, pulp and paper and pharmaceuticals - CEPPWAWU;
• Retail and hospitality - SACCAWU;
• Electricity - NUM, NUMSA and SAMWU;
• Transport - SATAWU;
• Communications - CWU;
• Public service - NEHAWU, POPCRU, SADTU, SASAWU;
• Local government - SAMWU;
• Construction and building materials and mining - NUM;
• Clothing, textile and footwear - SACTWU.

Because of the need to develop, mandate and negotiate progressive claims, sector job summits require clear structures and a lot of discussions. The key responsibilities are:

• Affiliates must develop and negotiate demands so that summits in their sector contribute to job retention and creation, and support a more effective economic development strategy.
• COSATU will provide overall support, and convene monthly report-back meetings and quarterly strategy workshops.
• NALEDI will provide technical assistance in developing claims.
• The NEDLAC Secretariat has agreed to provide logistical support.

Developing and negotiating claims will take a lot of capacity. For this reason, COSATU agreed last year that every affiliate would designate people just to work on the sector job summits. These people must work with a team that includes top leadership and coordinates closely with the union's negotiations and education people.

Campaigning around the project is going to be very important. The negotiators will need to know about members' experiences to formulate useful demands, and get strong mandates. We need to be able to rely on the strength of the union if we cannot reach agreement.

COSATU will soon publish a booklet with some basic ideas on sector job summits, including the kinds of information that shop stewards should feed into the process. In addition, we will publish articles on the progress of the sector job summits and ideas around sectoral strategies in every issue of the Shopsteward and in the Campaigns Bulletin.