Numsa Media Monitor
Tuesday 19 April 2016
A daily compilation of local, national and international articles dealing with labour related issues
SA Unions
Cosatu plan to counter rival union
MayibongweMaqhina, Daily News, 19 April 2016
Durban - Cosatu is leaving nothing to chance as it has put into motion plans to counter the imminent formation of a rival labour federation by some of its former leaders.
Speaking at the shop stewards council meeting in Durban this week, Cosatu president SdumoDlamini spelled out the fightback strategy to reclaim its place.
At the centre of the strategy is massive recruitment drive of potential members.
A “mother of all rallies” is being planned to campaign for a long-standing resolution on several socio-economic issues in Durban on Saturday.
Coupled with this are efforts to foster unity within the ranks of Cosatu-affiliated unions.
“If Cosatu takes comfort that we had a successful national congress in December, and therefore we are in honeymoon, we do not live in South Africa. We live in a different world,” Dlamini said.
He warned about the formation of a new labour federation organised by Cosatu former general secretary ZwelinzimaVavi and others that could threaten Cosatu.
The labour federation is expected to hold a workers summit on April 30 in Boksburg, Gauteng, and a follow-on rally in Thembisa, also Gauteng, the next day, May Day.
However, Dlamini pledged Cosatu’s support to foster unity in affiliates that are embroiled in infighting and problems arising from the bruising national congress and expulsion of Vavi and the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), among others.
He also called on the Cosatu unions to take a leaf from the Liberated Metalworkers Union of South Africa (Limusa), which replaced the expelled Numsa within the metal and engineering sector.
According to Dlamini, Limusa has embarked on old tactics in recruitment of members, which entailed taking to taxi ranks, trains and workplaces.
“I want to challenge you, comrades, let’s go back to basics. Let’s go to the trains, taxi ranks on targeted days to get so much (new members).
“They (Limusa) take us to the old ways we used to recruit membership,” he said.
Dlamini also said: “If we don’t do that, we weaken ourselves. Let’s build our unions… because there is nothing that is available beside Cosatu.”
He warned against payment of commission to members for recruitment by some unions, saying “you are killing Cosatu in that way”.
Dlamini said the Saturday national march, organised in partnership with the SACP, should demonstrate that Cosatu was still alive.
“We understand the capacity of this province to pull the numbers to make it a national march. You did last year, so come to that march in your numbers,” Dlamini added.
The march will campaign on longstanding Cosatu resolutions on the pension tax laws, fast-tracking of comprehensive social security and implementation of national health insurance, among others.
Speaking to Daily News, Vavi laughed off the planned initiatives of Cosatu, saying they were the last kicks of a dying horse in response to the formation of the new union.
“They are not Cosatu. They can name themselves as Cosatu, but they know they are not Cosatu,” he said.
He also said the worker issues to be taken up in the Saturday march should be a normal programme of his former labour federation.
“It will no longer be able to take those campaigns. People who pushed those resolutions were kicked out of the federations, so as not to anger the ANC,” Vavi said.
He explained that the workers summit would decide whether the launch of the federation should go ahead on May Day.
“If workers agree that we go to a new federation, it should take us four months to a launch congress. But, May Day will be celebrated as a new federation,” he said.
Metal and Engineering Industries Bargaining Council (MEIBC) warns to shut its doors
Cape Business News, 19 April 2016
According to South African labour news and Business Times, the Metal and Engineering Industries Bargaining Council (MEIBC) warns to shut its doors if companies and unions do not agree to an 18% levy increase.
The council, which services about 300,000 employees and more than 10,000 employers, has not had a levy increase since 2011 and now has a R14m deficit.
It is unable to pay some service providers and has temporarily halted dispute resolution services due to lack of funds. The council has been asking for an increase in levies almost every year since 2011, but this has been rejected by employers because of slow economic growth and the contraction in the steel industry.
The levy collection was also affected by an industry strike in 2014 as well as a four-month delay in the renewal of the levy last year.
MEIBC general secretary ThulaniMthiyane is concerned that should the council close or cut its 150 staff members, the industry would deteriorate into a noncomplying and deregulated one.
Employers' organisation Seifsa is encouraging employers to look at the big picture. Irvin Jim of steelworkers union Numsa says the reason the council had not received any increase on levies was that there was a level of hostility from employers who were against collective bargaining.
The council will meet with employers and unions on 11 May to ask for the 18% increase in the levy.
Fawu: SABMiller merger must not affect jobs
SisekoNjobeni, Business Report, 17 April 2016
Johannesburg - The Food and Allied Workers Union (Fawu) has demanded concrete commitments that the proposed merger between SABMiller, Gutsche Family Investments and Coca-Cola will not affect jobs and destroy local industries.
Fawu general secretary KatishiMasemola on Friday submitted a witness statement to the Competition Tribunal in preparation for the hearings on the merger next month.
Read: SABMiller, Coca-Cola gain approval for deal
Masemola declined to give details of his submission, but said his statement focused on job losses and the harmonisation of working conditions and benefits in the merging companies. He said Fawu wanted to get a breakdown of the 250 employees who might be retrenched as a result of the merger.
“We wanted to know if it is those at the top or staff at the bottom; we did not get that information,” Masemola said.
“We are disappointed that we did not get the information we were looking for. We needed that information in order to package our argument. We also wanted to know the impact of the merger on jobs in the supply chain.
“This includes jobs in the upstream, which is mainly the sugar industry and the downstream, which is jobs in retail and wholesale. We do not want to see any job losses.”
Last week’s agreement between the government and multinational brewing company Anheuser-Busch InBev, in which the company made a number of commitments on retrenchment and localisation, has raised the bar on mergers and acquisitions. Parties intervening in major mergers and acquisitions are likely to insist on stringent conditions.
The Competition Commission in December recommended a conditional approval of the merger, which will see the companies combine the bottling operations of their non-alcoholic beverages.
It pointed out that a number of suppliers would be placed in a weaker position as a result of the merger. “In other words, the merged entity is likely to gain significant bargaining power over its suppliers,” the commission said.
In order to address that concern, the merging companies undertook to purchase all tin cans, plastic bottles and closures, crates and sugar from local suppliers, the commission said at the time.
The merger will result in SABMiller transferring Appletiser, Grapetiser, Fruitiser, Peartiser and Lecol brands to Coca-Cola. SABMiller’s non-alcoholic beverages are currently housed in Amalgamated Beverages Industries, a division of SABMiller.
Cosatu has added its voice on the matter, reiterating Fawu’s concerns about job losses.
Spokesman SizwePamla said the federation was also concerned about the impact of the merger on local industrial capacity and value chains, saying the power of the merged entity could be detrimental to suppliers of apples, pears and other fruit in the Appletiser value chain and those of glass, tin, and other products in the Coca-Cola value chain.
Pamla said the Competition Tribunal should impose conditions to safeguard jobs or prohibit the merger.
“While the Competition Commission, in its investigation, identified job losses as a concern and suggested including a condition that caps the number of job losses, we do not believe this is sufficient. There should be a total ban on any job losses arising from this merger,” he said. “This could destroy thousands of jobs on farms and in factories.”
Did Zuma stash secret funds to establish Amcu’s rival union?
Pieter-Louis Myburgh, City Press, 17 April 2016
A huge civil suit against President Jacob Zuma, three Cabinet members and the national police commissioner is giving renewed impetus to sensational allegations that senior government leaders and secret intelligence agents were involved in the creation of a new trade union that was apparently intended to lure mine workers, particularly in the platinum industry, away from the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu).
City Press sister newspaper Rapport reports that the allegations are being made in the High Court in Pretoria in a R120 million claim against Zuma, the ministers of state security, police and defence, and the country’s police chief.
The claim relates to, among other things, the financial affairs of the Workers Association Union (WAU), a new trade union that was established early in 2014 to thwart Amcu’s dramatic rise in the platinum sector in the aftermath of the Marikana massacre at the end of 2012.
This was at the expense of the pro-ANC National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), which lost thousands of members to Amcu.
The aggrieved party, Thebe Maswabi, a former Amcu member, who was initially part of a group of so-called Amcu rebels who, in 2013, made allegations of corruption against Amcu president Joseph Mathunjwa, said he later formed the WAU on the instructions of Zuma, and received large amounts of cash from intelligence agents to pay for, among other things, the new union’s offices and staff salaries.
The WAU’s money apparently began to dry up after the union failed to lure significant support away from Amcu. This meant Maswabi alone was responsible for the mountain of debt that the union owed creditors, he said.
According to court papers, Zuma and the other defendants last month indicated they would oppose the claim.
A notice in the Government Gazette shows the WAU was registered on February 24 2014.
BonganiMajola, Zuma’s spokesperson, said the matter was sub judice and that it would run its course “in terms of the rules of the court”.
Brian Dube, State Security Minister David Mahlobo’s spokesperson, declined to answer questions about whether Mahlobo had had any contact with Maswabi.
SiphiweDlamini, Defence Minister NosiviweMapisa-Nqakula’s spokesperson, said: “Seeing that the matter is now following the court processes, it would be inappropriate to comment before that process has been concluded.”
NUM welcomes gazetted mining charter
eNCA/ANA, 17 April 2016
JOHANNESBURG - The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) on Sunday welcomed the gazetted reviewed Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Charter for the South African mining and minerals industry by Mineral Resources Minister MosebenziZwane.
This was in line with section 100 of the Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA), the NUM said in a statement.
This “puts the industry well on time” to achieve its alignment process with the Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Act and the trade and industry department (dti) codes of good practice as per the minister of trade and industry exemption gazetted in 2015.
“The NUM national office bearers will be undertaking to engage minister Zwane and the acting director general Mr Msiza during the prescribed 30 days consultation period and hoping all stakeholders will embrace this positive development.
“We reiterate our call on the implementation of corrective actions in line with MPRDA on all mining right holders who have failed to comply with the current mining charter targets and this draft should pave [the] way for the withdrawal of all court processes by various parties including the Chamber of Mines,” the NUM said.
The NUM would study the draft mining charter and prepare a substantial contribution that would be submitted to the mineral resources department within the prescribed period, “with the hope of ensuring the workers benefit through employee share ownership schemes, human resources development, home ownership, and employment equity, among other elements”, the NUM said.
South Africa
Poor education traps black youth in poverty
Carol Paton, Business Day, 19 April 2016
TWO sets of data released on Monday provide alarming evidence that SA’s poor black youth are falling behind their peers in other population groups, and trends show there is little hope of this changing, despite government attempts at transformation.
Releasing Statistics SA’s (Stats SA’s) "social profile of youth" report, statistician-general PaliLehohla said that the findings indicated "a very difficult future", and that SA remained stuck in its apartheid past, unable to overcome its legacy issues.
The report strips away the myth that the country is making progress through higher matric pass rates and higher numbers of university admissions.
Youth unemployment — among people 15 to 34 years old — remains stubbornly high at 39.5%, an increase on five years ago at 34.2%. While education remains the key pathway out of unemployment — 57% of unemployed do not have matric — black youth have been less able than other groups to translate educational opportunities into skilled jobs.
Compared to 1994, a greater percentage of white, coloured and Indian youth have made it into skilled work as managers, professionals or technicians. But among black youth, the percentage of those in skilled jobs was almost static over 20 years and even declined. So, in the age group of 25-34, there was a 2% decline in the proportion of those in skilled jobs, and among those aged 15-24, the needle hardly moved from about 9% to 10%.
The implication of this, Mr Lehohla said, "is that the parents are better equipped than their children. And when this happens, you don’t have a future."
One explanation for this, Mr Lehohla said, was that while the number of enrolments of black students at university had increased considerably, the completion rate of black students was far lower as a proportion of enrolment than it was even in 1994. Another was the closure of teacher training colleges and nursing colleges that were institutions that had catered more for black students than any other group.
Stark data on educational achievement was also released on Monday by Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga in response to a question by Democratic Alliance MP Gavin Davis.
Ms Motshekga said educational attainment in SA’s poorest schools is falling, while in its richest schools, it is consistently high. In 2013, the matric pass rate in quintile 1 schools — schools in the poorest areas — was 70.3%. In 2014, this dropped to 67.5%, and last year, to 61.6%. In contrast, in quintile 5 schools — SA’s richest public schools, mostly in the former white suburbs — achieved a 91.9% matric pass rate in 2013; a 90.2% pass rate in 2014; and a 90.8% pass rate last year.
The youth report also illustrates a bigger developmental issue for policy makers: by failing to educate its youthful population — known by demographers as the youth bulge — SA has little hope of realising a "demographic dividend," which was seen by policy makers as an important factor in SA’s favour.
Some societies — such as the US and Europe during the post Second World War "baby boom" — were able to turn a growing population to advantage when a growing number of people entered the workforce relative to the number of dependants.
In its 2015 report on SA, the World Bank said SA’s potential to reap the demographic dividend was one of the few silver linings in an otherwise bleak economic climate. But significantly, says the Stats SA report, youth have declined slightly as a share of the population, from 36.8% in 2009 to 36.5%, indicating that the youth bulge is coming to an end. SA’s fertility rate at 2.5 children per woman is now close to replacement levels of 2.1%.
"If we are so close to replacement and the proportion of youth is falling, and we have persistently high youth unemployment, then we have a cocktail for disaster. We had the bulge, but the bulge was not translated into usable human capital. It suggests a very difficult future," Mr Lehohla said.
The Great Reversal: StatSA claims black youth are less skilled than their parents