Numsa declares "war" on wage bargaining negotiations
Casual workers battle with police, labour brokers and Egen
Domestic workers get organised
NUMSA declares "war" on wage bargaining negotiations By Dumisa Ntuli. NUMSA spokesperson
The National Union of Metalworkers (NUMSA) has noted with regret that the wages and working conditions of engineering, automobile, motor and tyre workers have not improved drastically. Most lower-earning workers continue to receive meagre and exploitative wages. The employers:
- Have not been prepared to close the apartheid wage gap;
- Have continued to dismiss workers through restructuring, outsourcing, mergers, fraudulent liquidation's and sub-contracting;
- Have not treated HIV/AIDS as a priority;
- Have been reluctant to invest in training and education, including basic skills training, in spite of the legislation on skills development plans.
- Have not improved health and safety tremendously, and
- Are still reluctant to submit plans to comply with the Employment Equity Act.
Bargaining is going to be tough this year. Employers, especially in engineering, are preparing themselves for a continued downturn in the economy. Already warning lights are sounding in the USA and other economies that a recession is coming. Employers have continued to be hostile on workers demands. NUMSA vows to fight tirelessly in pursuance of it demands:
15% increase on wages
This year, employers will put pressure on workers to agree to wage increases equal to inflation or below. With the latest inflation figure at 6.9%, a demand for a 15% increase is going to be portrayed as 'unreasonable', 'way above inflation' and so on. With government determined to get inflation down to its target of 5%, our demand is unlikely to receive support from that quarter either.
In 1994 when the ANC was voted into power, workers were hopeful that change would come both politically and economically. But in the workplace, wages and the differentials between the well paid and the low paid have stayed the same. Many NUMSA members are earning poverty wages.
Each year the University of Port Elizabeth estimates the Household Subsistence Level (HSL) - what an average family of five needs to "maintain a defined minimum level of health and decency in the short term".
It includes only food, transport, small items of clothing etc. and excludes medical expenses, education, savings, insurance, the purchase and replacement of household equipment.
This figure for a family of five in a low-income household in August 2000 was R1359.97. For a low-middle income household of five, it was R1777.56. They publish another figure, called the Household Effective Level (HEL) which is 150% of this amount which they say is what is needed to "maintain health and decency in the long term". The August 2000 HEL figures are R2039.96 for a low-income household and R2666.34 for a low-middle income household.
When we surveyed NUMSA members last year we found that most households had at least four people in them; most had 5, 6, 7 and more. In most, the NUMSA member was the only person working. So if you take a look at the minimum wages across NUMSA's sectors given below, this wage is supporting the whole household.
Look how many of these are below the HSL and the HEL! For example: Motor sector (panel beating shops, spare parts dealers, garages -repair and service etc.)
Grade 1 R 1 028.08 (general worker) Grade 2 R1475.02 Grade 3 R1599.72 Grade 4 R1755.60 Grade 5 R1967.99 Grade 6 R2379.12
Engineering sector Grade DD R2535.13 (general worker) Grade DDD R2387.83 Grade E R2247.79 Grade F R2120.49 Grade G R1991.37 Grade H R1873.16
Inflation
Workers' wages have hardly kept pace with inflation. Every year wages increase but so do the prices of all the things they pay for. If wages increase more than prices, then we say that workers have got a real wage increase and at least they will have more money to spend. If prices increase more than wages, then workers have less money to spend than the previous year and they get poorer and poorer.
Only in two of NUMSA's sectors - auto assembly and tyre - have workers' real wages increased over the last four years. In the motor sector, workers have really suffered - they are poorer now than they were in 1992. Engineering workers' are no richer or poorer - their real incomes have stayed the same.
Growing gap between directors and workers
While workers have struggled to get real wage increases, research by the Labour Research Service (LRS) shows that the remuneration gap between an average director and an average general worker has doubled from 46:1 to 92:1.
LRS show that while workers' real wages increased by 0.008% between 1997 and 2000 (this is almost the same as workers in the engineering sector), the increases for executive directors for the same years was 85% and for non-executive directors 164%.
South Africa has one of the highest levels of inequality in the world. The 1996 World Development Report found that only Brazil had a higher level of inequality than SA's 0:59. The economy has become more unequal because of two main issues:
- Increasing job losses - the engineering sector alone has lost 25 000 jobs in the last ten years. A NUMSA survey of its members last year showed that only 15% of households reported that no one was unemployed. The bulk of households had at least one member unemployed. This shows that in NUMSA members' households the unemployment rate is closer to 50% and more - way above the national figure of 36%. Workers are bearing the brunt of the unemployment crisis!
- Productivity has increased. Labour productivity was about 0.2% per worker in the 1980s. During the 1990s this jumped to 3.5% per worker.
The result of both of these factors is that profits rose by 17% in the third quarter of 2000 over the previous year. But the increasing profits have not been shared equally. In the third quarter of 2000, labour received 53.5% of total income - down from 56% in the same period the year before.GEAR has failed to deliver
The government has argued that it must get its macro-economic balance right and get the economy right for investors. It must reduce the budget deficit, privatise state assets and fight inflation through high interest rates.
It has kept to its GEAR policy but the economy refuses to grow at the rates that GEAR predicted and there is little foreign investment coming into the country.
World Bank research indicates that in countries that emerge from deep inequality, growth is held back and if there is growth, it does not automatically flow to everyone equally. The World Bank has cautioned the SA government recently about the extent of poverty and unemployment and that this is not sustainable for the economy.
Kick-start the economy!
These criticisms have forced the government in this year's budget to push for more investment in infrastructure and other areas to try and kick-start the economy so that investors will follow government's lead. But is this enough?
NUMSA argues that this is not enough. NUMSA believes that government and the private sector must make a concerted effort to kick-start the economy. Aneme Malan of Statistics SA calculates that GDP could be boosted more by redistributing from the rich to the poor.
"If the income of African households increases by R1," she writes, "and if that additional income is spent according to existing expenditure patterns, then the GDP will increase by R1.23... This implies that a redistribution of income from the higher to the lower income groups will, other things being equal, lead to an increase in GDP."
Other research showing that there is an investment 'strike' by the private sector supports this argument. Instead of employers reinvesting their profits into areas that could lead to job creation, they are putting their money offshore or into the stock exchange in a way that results in little benefit to the economy.
Our message to employers is that they must divide the cake in a different way so that more flows to the lower paid workers, particularly to the motor workers.
Shortage of skills keeping differentials high
If they argue that they have to pay high wages to keep skilled workers, then we are not sympathetic. Compared with other economies, the pay differentials between low skilled and high skilled workers in this country are artificially high. There is a surplus of unskilled labour and a shortage of skilled labour. Very often this is also a black-white divide.
Employers know this and we know this and have been demanding skills training for years. But employers have done little. They must accelerate their skills training, not just for workers in their own companies but for the unemployed as well. With employers contributing a levy in terms of the Skills Act, employers have no more excuses.
Based on statements by the Engen Workers' Crisis Committee
COSATU has been campaigning to recruit part-time, temporary and casual workers into the trade unions and to change the law so that they receive the same protection as permanent workers.There could not be a better example of why such workers need the protection of the unions than recent events at the Engen refinery in Durban, where casual workers were involved in a violent confrontation with employers and the police.
These workers were hired by labour brokers to do maintenance work during an annual four-week shut-down of the refinery. They generally work under no protection from the law and are subject to degrading working conditions. The dispute started when the employers altered their wage rates and working hours.
Engen have tried to absolve themselves by saying they are not the employer, but that the workers are the responsibility of the labour brokers, yet this huge transnational company can throw its weight around so much that they have the police on their side.
On the night of 20 May, the Wentworth SAPS opened fire on an unarmed crowd of people who assembled at the police station after a community meeting resolved to hold a peaceful assembly to request that Engen-access badges confiscated by the police on 22 March be restored to workers working at the refinery.
The violence on the part of the crowd was provoked by sniping from the Wentworth police building, presumably by officers on duty there. Four people were wounded by gunfire. In response to this heavy-handed behaviour, a SAPS vehicle was damaged and certain windows were broken but at no stage did this justify the firing of live ammunition on citizens.
This incident brings into sharp focus community resentment at the SAPS's one-sided role in the on-going labour dispute between workers employed by various labour brokers and the Engen oil-refinery. Blame for the violence is to be laid firmly at the door of Engen.
Two other incidents indicate the grossly unfair way in which the police have handled the situation. On 22 May, while workers were meeting at Ogle Road grounds, a gun-wielding ex-policeman waded into the crowd, in full view of the police. He proceeded to beat up one of the workers, pointed his firearm at him and threatened to shoot him. The gunman, who is well known to the local police, was taken into custody and immediately released.
The worker who was assaulted was then arrested when he came to lay a charge. The second is the deliberate withholding of bail to those arrested. Allegations have surfaced that the arrested workers were badly beaten. We call on an immediate investigation into the Wentworth police station, as the community demanded over a year ago.
The dispute in the township relates in the first instance to Engen's unilateral reduction in wage rates. However, a much more powerful reason for community anger relates to Engen's subversion of the labour laws by using the device of labour-broking to shield it from the responsibilities of employing the shut-down workers.
Other areas of dispute between the Wentworth community and the giant multinational are the continual high level of pollution Engen pump out into the air of the Durban South Industrial Basin and the company's hiring of gangster-foreman.
The community meeting was attended by Fatima Meer, respected anti-apartheid leader and biographer of Nelson Mandela. She appealed for calm after the police-shootings, having narrowly escaped being shot herself.
Reverend Deacon Frankson of the Roman Catholic Church, Councillor Preggie Naidoo of Isipingo and environmentalist Bobby Peeke called upon Engen to be a "moral employer" and cease their exploitation of workers.
Engen's lawyers have rejected numerous appeals for negotiation and mediation by neutral arbitrators. They have also threatened to interdict two persons associated with the dispute.
The latest rejection of mediation came after representatives of Engen as well as Barry Rawlins of Fluor (a key labour broker) failed to pitch up for a scheduled mediation session on 19 May 2001 on the basis that Rawlins wished to watch a Super 12 rugby game.
We continue to call for independent arbitration of the dispute. We condemn the shooting violence of unarmed and peaceful citizens and call upon all socially conscious citizens to boycott Engen until the crisis has been resolved.
This scurrilous labour practice must stop. It is despicable in this day and age that Engen treats labourers as if apartheid was alive and well. It is an issue of fundamental worker rights. We plead with you to hear our voices and the exploitation and degradation we have endured.
Domestic workers get organised. Viva, SADSAWU, Viva! By Elma Geswindt, Administrator, COSATU Western Cape
In 1996, on advice from the COSATU leadership, the former South African Domestic Workers' Union (SADWU) decided to disband, as it was facing organisational and financial problems.
At its closure COSATU resolved to find a home for domestic workers. But this has not yet happened and so some domestic workers and former SADWU organisers decided to form a new union. After several workshops and discussions, mostly around what went wrong within SADWU, a new union, the SA Domestic Service and Allied Workers' Union (SADSAWU) was launched in April 2000 in KwaZulu Natal.
Since then this union has shown potential growth and plans to hold campaigns to organise the unorganised. It is not easy to organise domestic workers, as they are scattered around the country. Its aims are to educate and mobilize domestic workers and campaign that all labour laws should be extended to domestic workers.
There was some interference from the local police who threatened to put us in jail for the night if we did not disperse from the gates of Parliament. We decided to comply, as we had no guarantee that we would be released before 9h00 the next morning, in time for the picket.
The chain protest was a great success. On Monday morning SADSAWU General Secretary, Myrtle Witbooi, handed a memorandum to Salie Manie Chairperson of UIF Commission and presented our submission to Parliament where it was well received. Then, on Wednesday they informed us that domestic workers will be included and an investigation around it should be finished within 12 months.
"Me as a domestic worker in Parliament! It's unheard of, but I'm here today," said Hester Stephen, President of SADSAWU .
This was a victory for domestic workers, the most oppressed workforce within South Africa.
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