shops 10.5

What is National Productivity Institute?

Women must unite to face new challenges

Women must unite to face new challengesBy Mummy Jafta, COSATU Gender Co-ordinator

It is now 45 years since more than 20 000 South African women, led by the heroines of our liberation struggle such as the late Cdes Lillian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph and Dora Tamana, marched to Pretoria against the extension of pass laws to African women.

This action took place against the backdrop of the massive and successful Defiance Campaign aimed at dislodging apartheid rule on one part and laying the necessary foundations for a change in power and economic relations.

Today as we proudly celebrate the 45th anniversary of this historic march and the national holiday declared by our new dispensation, we need to assess the evolution of our struggles towards the emancipation of women. How far have we developed a gendered understanding of our own situation and created a working class led national women's movement?

The period since the democratic breakthrough has been eventful both for the nation and women specifically. The rise of women at various levels of governance and at organisational level signalled a significant change in the societal power relations and a gradual move away from the trappings imposed by patriarchy and capitalism.
We need to use this day to evaluate the progress we have made towards the goals we have set ourselves, taking account of the impact of challenges imposed by globalisation and its neo liberal ideological underpinnings.

National Women's Day in 2001, just as in 1956, takes place against a backdrop of many challenges, most notably the assault on the role of the state through the accelerated privatisation of state assets. The effect has been the marginalisation of the poor, as the basic services they desperately need have become commodified, to be run to make a profit.

This has also eroded hard-won victories on the shop floor, as public institutions and major companies have opted for outsourcing and privatisation of certain functions. This has resulted in the disruption of bargaining arrangements and the displacement of workers from formal forms of employment such as unemployment benefit, as a direct result of the retrenchments and underemployment that has become worse as employers seek to maximise their profits.
COSATU says enough is enough and launched our campaign against privatisation.

Therefore COSATU has committed itself to use National Women's Day for two important reasons:

To build on the foundations laid by our heroines of 1956 by ensuring that the visions, principles and goals they espoused and cherished are fully realised

The maximum mobilisation of all our people in defence of the gains made in the course of our struggle. This includes our campaigns against privatisation, HIV/AIDS, job losses, racism, poverty, and unemployment

We will relentlessly campaign against:

Marginalisation of women in the workplace and society in general

Globalisation, with its neo liberal underpinnings which pose a major threat and intensified exploitation;

Poverty that wears a feminist face;

Sexual harassment and violence against women and children;

Trafficking of women and children for domestic work and prostitution

Ongoing wars;

HIV/AIDS, hits women especially hard;

Appalling conditions of health and safety at work

COSATU is therefore committed to:

Organising the most vulnerable sectors of society - predominantly women workers - taking into account their specific conditions of work:

Strengthening a working-class led National Women's Movement that will involve all those who believe that as a nation we will not be free as long as women are not emancipated

Ensuring that the gender policies enshrined in our Gender Policy are implemented effectively by our affiliates and regions;

Working towards a shared vision and common understanding of gender struggles and strategies'

Translating the vision and principles underpinning it to concrete action to accelerate transformation process.

This day still brings us together to acknowledge and celebrate the contribution of women in the liberation struggle and the transformation of our society and to remember and honour the 20,000 women who took action to protest against the extension of pass laws to include black women in 1955.
It marked a time of great social turbulence and crisis, from which we have inherited a tradition of protest and political activism by women who are mostly affected by the impact of discrimination and resistance towards change.

To COSATU women we say:

Participate and demand to be heard!

Volunteer for self-empowerment and mentoring!

Lobby vigorously for other women!To COSATU male comrades we say:

Become proponents of gender equity!

Give power and solidarity to women through mentoring!

Lobby and advocate for women leadership!

Amandla Ngawethu!Women unite for a working class led women's movement!Strydom! Wathint 'abafazi wathint'imbokotho!

What is the National Productivity Institute?

In The Shopsteward 10.4, David Jarvis and Gary Phillips wrote a critical article about the Workplace Challenge Project co-ordinated by the National Productivity Institute. Here Thulani Dlamini, SATAWU Collective Bargaining Secretary and member of the NPI SPAAC, puts forward a much more positive view of the NPI. What do you think? Please write with your comments.

The National Productivity Institute (NPI) is a tripartite institution of government, business and labour, set up to develop a productivity culture. It helps the three stakeholders at company level to facilitate that productive culture in a way that benefits both the company and its employees.

To encourage this productive culture, the NPI has also developed an annual award system, known as the Productivity Awards, normally awarded to companies that did well productivity-wise, in the year ended. Interest appears to be growing and more industries and companies enter for the awards each year.

It is therefore no wonder that our productivity ranking in the world continues to improve, as shown by facts and figures from the NPI.
The NPI has a Board of Directors selected from the three stakeholders, which meets regularly, makes final decisions and directs management.

Initial policy making however resides largely with the Social Plan and Advisory Council (SPAAC), which originally set up the Board of Directors two years ago.
Since then the SPAAC has left final decisions and policy making to the Board while it continues to play its advisory role and continues to meet quarterly.

From time to time it conducts workshops, in addition to the ordinary meetings. The SPAAC members attend and give direct input, whilst still retaining their right to comment at the SPAAC meetings.
It runs tours to particular, exemplary companies and holds seminars, breakfast meetings and other forums for stakeholders from various industries on such topics as:

Transformation;

Empowerment;

Maximising productivity;

Creating a productive culture in your organisation;

Developing on-the-job training systems;

Relations between management;

The search for the lost Dutchman's gold mine (a team effectiveness-simulation game)

Have you missed the project deadline again?

Critical chain (the radical approach to project management);

Release the power of through-put accounting and convey the message

Making productivity visible.

In addition, following the Presidential Jobs Summit, Nedlac tasked the NPI to preside over two aspects of the Social Plan relating to the Workplace Challenge Project and retrenchments.

The Workplace Challenge is essentially a tool to turn around the performance of a company, away from negative trends that would normally cause retrenchments at a later stage if left unchecked.

Unfortunately most employers leave it until late - until they either have to retrench or close down - before they really start screaming. Even then you are never sure whether it is genuine or not. Workers are normally consulted only when the company has already decided to retrench, without having consulted workers.

Ideally there should be an early warning system, where both the employer and labour interact at the beginning of the problems, rather than to the effects the problems have been allowed to have.

SATAWU has been involved in four cases where management changed from retrenchments to saving the situation, and in the process empowered workers so that they ended up co-owning those companies, without losing their union membership.

The other element of the Social Plan the NPI looks at is softening the impact of retrenchments. The NPI normally looks at the company's financial books and its method of operations. In quite a few cases they have indicated that the company could well be turned around, with no need or less need for retrenchments.

With parties willing, the NPI can engage consultants to help with turnaround strategies. As recorded above, SATAWU has been blessed with four such initiatives, where workers ended up being empowered to co-own those companies.

In fact instances where retrenchments continued despite NPI involvement have been caused by management's refusal to co-operate with labour and the NPI, owing to their resolve to close down or retrench, no matter what.

Normally, when the NPI is satisfied that retrenchments are justified, the alternative is to advocate training retrenchees in other skills and put up up to 65% of the costs of this, so that the retrenchees can be employable again.

Yet we have companies like those in the Imperial Group who are not even prepared to take advantage of this, simply because they still have to fork out the 35% towards training.

The problem is that the Competitions Commission has allowed this group to purchase competing companies in the road freight sector, without checking the economic impact this would have. The group is now off-loading workers, whilst moving all their companies' lucrative contracts to one company, where drivers are employed on lesser rates than those paid by their other companies.

Finally SATAWU is now working within our Bargaining Councils to ensure that there is a permanent link between the industries and the NPI. For example, at the road freight industry, we have agreed in principle - subject to respective constituencies' approval - to an agreement under which companies will be encouraged to advise the council of any financials problems much earlier on.

The Bargaining Council will be able to pick out erratic payments to them and then advise the company to work with NPI on the Workplace Challenge Programme and suggest turnaround strategies. The Council will also advise that the NPI be involved on the question of retrenchments.

This will help us to build up the database we will be setting up on retrenchments and job opportunities within the industry. It has been agreed in principle that this will be handled by the Road Freight Sector Social Plan Centres, which will train the retrenched for employability within the industry, whose source of employment will become these social centres, which are currently being costed.

Based on our few experiences as SATAWU, we believe the NPI is doing its job perfectly, sometimes to the detriment of its relationship with some of the companies which are not prepared to be catalysts in changing South Africa's economic and political spheres and end up wanting to associate NPI with the unions.

The NPI is based at 5th-7th floors, Prodinsa Building, corner of Beatrix and Pretorius Streets, Arcadia, 0123, Pretoria.

For productivity related issues, please contact the CEO, Dr Yvonne Dladla, who will direct you to the unit most relevant to the issue at hand.

For social plan matters (Workplace Challenge and retrenchments), please contact Dr Dudley Jackson, who will again organise the people from respective units, plus consultants, to be deployed to assist in that workplace.