The Cosatu Health, Safety and the Environment Conference in October this year was the culmination of ten years of working for healthier, safer workplaces and work practices. It was also a recognition of the progress made since 1985 - that the struggle for healthier workplaces can not be separated from broader environmental concerns.
"The debate around the 'environment' is not just about saving various species from extinction. Unions have to develop positions and strategies to protect our living and working environments, because if we don't, others will take those decisions for us," cautioned Cosatu president John Gomomo.
At the conference, he said to workers: "We work, not to be injured and killed at work, but to develop the economy and to build the social infrastructure for our country, to feed and educate our families and to support the unemployed ... we need a safe working environment. To do this we must struggle."
Although Cosatu never had a concerted, planned programme around health and safety, the federation and its affiliates have made some important interventions in protecting the rights of workers.
The NUTW's fight against Brown Lung in 1982, had set an example of struggle for health and safety in the workplace. The terrible damage done to workers' lungs galvanised the textile union to fight for the inclusion of cotton dust into the schedule of compensatable hazards.
CWIU members at Thor Chemicals in Cato Ridge forced the world to take note that workers and their communities often bore the brunt of environmental hazards. CWIU took the battle across the world to Britain and in a major breakthrough, British courts ruled that British companies could be held responsible for their actions in other countries. This was a major warning to multinationals not to use our country as a dumping ground, and forced them to practice responsible occupational and environmental health and safety.
Num helped to raise awareness of the particularly hazardous nature of our mining industry. The Hlobane colliery tragedy, the September 1986 Kinross disaster and subsequent mining disasters at Kinross, Middelbult, Merriespruit, and Vaal Reefs resulted in terrible loss of life.
After Kinross, for the first time, tens of thousands of workers heeded a Cosatu protest call on a health and safety issue. And, for two years following the disaster, Cosatu's Wits region and local health and safety NGOs organised health and safety awareness days. These events were especially well-supported by Ppwawu (then Pwawu).
Union recognition of health and safety as an organising and mobilising tool was generally slow in coming. This was partly because workplace health and safety was regarded as a "back burner" issue.
Policy intervention
Cosatu's first major policy intervention in the struggle for workplace health and safety was its 1991 Aids conference. Unions such as the TGWU were instrumental in making Aids a trade union issue. Their members employed in long-haul road freight operations were found to be particularly at risk.
Over the past two years, worker pressure has helped to reform the old Workmen's Compensation Act (now the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act - Coida) and the Machinery and Occupational Safety Act (since replaced by the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA). Diseases previously not compensatable have been brought into the ambit of Coida.
In 1994, Cosatu joined the reconstituted statutory tripartite bodies - the Advisory Council on Occupational Health and Safety (ACOHS - established to work with the Department of Labour's Directorate for Occupational Health and Safety) and the Compensation Board.
NUM's demand for a judicial inquiry into mine health and safety resulted in the Leon Commission. The Commission made radical recommendations for changes in the mining industry. A new law, drawing on the International Convention on Mining, is presently being finalised through a tripartite structure and will bring South Africa in line with the rest of the world.
The new Department of Labour has responded positively to unions' concerns to play a role in shaping policy. In November this year, the Department convened a meeting to look at ways of developing national policy and rationalising the work of other departments in the area.
At the 1995 conference, Gomomo warned however that "this struggle cannot be won in the classroom, at seminars or conferences, or by experts. Workers will have to demand control over their working lives and their right to a decent working environment. Those who are in the frontline of the production process and who are exposed to dangers and disease must have the right to decide what controls must be introduced to eliminate these hazards."
The way forward
The 1995 conference was an important step forward in determining the rights of workers to a safe, healthy working and living environment. It examined changes to existing laws and what new laws are needed. Delegates also debated how existing resources for training and promoting accident prevention could be better used.
Health, safety and the environment was a collective bargaining issue, Gomomo told the conference.
Although management had failed to create a safe working environment, trade unions had also not developed an effective programme for engaging the bosses and had not accepted that health, safety and environmental issues are organisational in nature, said Gomomo.
General secretary Sam Shilowa told delegates that those affiliates who had taken up health, safety and environmental issues usually did this as a result of pressure from the ground.
Paul Benjamin felt that the new laws had not really changed things enough. He reminded the conference that health and safety must not be separated from other labour law - it is no different to basic conditions of employment. The laws lay down minimum standards only, and trade unions should be negotiating better conditions and procedures.
When workers are injured or sick, they are dismissed with little or no money. New workers are hired in their place. Little is done to prevent injury or disease happening to someone else. Our health and safety system means that accidents are cheap for the bosses and expensive for workers.
Delegates called for a radical change in the compensation of diseases and injuries. The time had come, they argued, for workers to get decent compensation. Laws which govern the prevention and compensation of injury and disease must be radically restructured.
The OHSA and the Coida must be restructured to include the following:
The conference acknowledged the debt owed to the many comrades who have died and been injured in our mines and factories. And it expressed the hope that, in the future, as questions of how we work become as important as what we are paid, the physical conditions and environment in which workers labour will find its way onto union agendas.
Shirley Miller, Health and Safety coordinator, CWIU.
However, in the past six months, many changes have taken place and the balance of power is shifting.
The past
Historically, the National Union of Mineworkers (Num) has always championed the cause of workers' health and safety. Workplace issues have not only centered on wages and job security, but on the health and well-being of union members.
Mining is inherently risky - danger is a part of the mine workers' every-day life. Since the union's inception in 1983, health and safety has been high on the agenda and has been used as an organisational issue.
In 1983, 68 workers died in an underground explosion at Hlobane Colliery. This was the beginning of the union's focus on the safety of its members. Thirty thousand workers stopped work for half an hour in solidarity with those comrades who had died.
The Num took the mine to court for negligence - arguing that the accident happened because the mine was not safe. The court found the mine guilty, signaling the first health and safety victory for the union.
In 1983, 17 workers were fired from the West Driefontein gold mine for refusing to work under dangerous conditions. The Num took the mine to the industrial court and had the workers reinstated.
Another turning point for the union came in 1987, when 177 workers died at the Kinross gold mine. The workers died in a fire caused by a substance called polyurethane - which was banned overseas by other mining industries in 1968 - yet mine bosses continued to use it in South Africa.
The union was not allowed to visit the scene of the accident. The bodies of the dead mineworkers were stacked outside the mortuary in the boiling sun because they did not have space for them inside. When the workers mourned the loss of their comrades at a mass meeting, the apartheid government responded by sending in riot police.
The union was not allowed to cross examine witnesses at the inquiry into the accident and it again took mine management to court. The Supreme Court ruled that the union was an interested party and should be allowed to ask questions.
The mine was not found guilty of the accident, instead a plate-layer was fined R100 for causing the fire with a cylinder of acetylene. The life of each dead mineworker had been worth less than R1!
The present
For many years, the union fought for an independent commission to investigate health and safety, for the implementation of the ILO Convention on Mine Health and Safety, and for a Mine Health and Safety Bill.
After a long battle, the state president gave in to demands for an independent commission of inquiry. During August and September 1994, Justice R Leon and three independent assessors heard evidence about the conditions in the mining industry. The union presented a massive submission and called various experts to give evidence to the Commission.
In March 1995, the Leon Commission's report was released. The report was another victory for the union as it validated many of its arguments. Besides criticising the industry, the report stated that the mine bosses were not doing enough to improve the health and safety of mineworkers. The report found that the accident rate for the mining industry was unacceptably high.
But the Leon Commission report did not initially bear much fruit. The mine bosses were locked in argument with the union regarding the implementation of the report at mine level.
Then, in May 1995, another disaster struck the industry. A locomotive engine plunged down a shaft in Vaal Reefs gold mine, crushing 104 workers.
This accident shocked everyone into action. The Cabinet decided that the Leon Commission's recommendations must be implemented urgently, and the mine bosses accepted the inevitable. The mineworkers did not die in vain.
Worker rights
A new Mine Health and Safety Act has been drafted on a tripartite basis and will be enacted by Parliament in March next year.
The Bill is very important because it entrenches workers' four basic health and safety rights - the right to representation, participation, information, education and training and the right to refuse to do dangerous work.
Another provision in the Bill is for mine workers to elect health and safety representatives who will participate in decision making through joint health and safety committees. These representatives will have extensive rights and duties in terms of the legislation.
At national level, unions will be able to participate in many tripartite committees which will cover a range of issues from the regulatory framework to research and occupational health matters.
The unions have formed a labour caucus and are now in a better position to influence decision making and policy issues around health and safety.
Num is positive about these changes. The challenge it now faces, is to educate and organise members on their rights. Mineworkers must start to flex their collective muscle and stop unsafe and unhealthy practices. They now have the power to challenge mine bosses.
Fleur Plimmer, Health and Safety Co-ordinator, Num