The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has raised serious concerns over the exclusion of organised labour from the task team of government and big business convened by the Presidency to deal with South Africa’s economic bottlenecks.
This comes after senior business leaders last week resolved to collaborate with the government in tackling the country’s major bottlenecks in a bid to attract investment, create jobs and grow the economy by 3% a year.
Leaders of Business Unity South Africa (Busa), Business for South Africa (B4SA), and Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) identified the energy crisis, transport and logistics challenges, and crime and corruption as three priority areas to turn the tide against the low growth trap.
However, Cosatu said yesterday that although it appreciated the government had the right to meet with whomever it pleased, its concern was that this was not a mere once-off engagement between government and business.
Cosatu acting national spokesperson Matthew Parks said this was now a full-fledged task team with various work streams that was undertaking the restructuring of Transnet and Eskom, that might have implications for their employees’ jobs and conditions and for the role of the state in these critical state-owned enterprises (SOEs).
Parks said despite the labour federation having raised its deep unhappiness about this with the government, Cosatu continued to see that workers were being excluded from important discussions about themselves, their jobs and the economy.
He said such exclusion of organised labour fuelled workers’ fears of privatisation of our SOEs and job losses.
“Cosatu is equally aggrieved that this undermines the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) and the president’s commitment to a social compact,” Parks said.
“While organised business may be pleased to bypass Nedlac now, it may come to regret setting such a precedent in future when a less trustworthy administration may take office.
“We will not be able to fix Eskom, Transnet or the economy unless all social partners are involved, contribute and take ownership of a common programme to rebuild our SOEs.”
Parks said Cosatu would be engaging the Presidency to ensure that all social partners were part of these efforts to address the many challenges affecting Eskom and Transnet and that the legislated role of Nedlac was upheld and defended.
Business’s support has been mobilised in critical areas, including Eskom technical support on optimising the diesel supply chain at Ankerlig, supporting the return of additional units at Kusile and four key power stations to assist power station managers with turnaround plans at those facilities.
The National Logistics Crisis Committee (NLCC) has been formally constituted with participation from relevant government departments, Transnet and business.
Four corridor recovery teams have been established focusing on strategic commodity export supply chains in coal, iron ore, manganese, chrome and magnetite to jointly address performance constraints.
The Joint Initiative against Crime and Corruption (JICC) has also been constituted, with senior representatives from law enforcement agencies and business.
Last week, President Cyril Ramaphosa said this collaboration was built on the recognition that both the government and business needed to take bold and urgent action to confront these challenges and place South Africa on a trajectory of growth and job creation.
“It is built on a shared vision for our country – as a thriving constitutional democracy in which the rule of law is sacrosanct, as a dynamic and fast-growing economy, and as a society in which no person is left behind,” Ramaphosa said.
“We welcome the emphasis on strategic partnerships and focused interventions, which has enabled us to make significant progress in a short space of time.”
BUSINESS REPORT