By Dirk Hartford
JOHANNESBURG — National Union of Metalworkers (NUMSA) members are currently discussing a completely new approach to collective bargaining in the metal, motor and auto manufacturing sectors. The essence of the new approach is for NUMSA to negotiate a broad three-year program of wages and industrial restructuring — wages, skill development and strategies would be planned and negotiated over that period — in line with common objectives of the union and employers.
Wages and conditions are currently negotiated on an annual basis. It is envisaged that the wage negotiations will be linked to a grade reduction process designed to lay the basis for developing world class manufacturing in the industries that NUMSA has organised.
The draft proposal, which has the support of the union's national executive committee, will be referred to the central executive committee for a final decision. It fits into Congress of South African Trade Union (COSATU) discussion around a "reconstruction pact" between it and the ANC, as well as being underpinned by vaguely similar ideas being addressed in COSATU's two other big affiliates, the mineworkers (NUM) and clothing and textile union (SACTWU).
The NUMSA proposal follows a defeat of the union in last year's national strike in the metal and auto industries — the biggest national industrial strike in South Africa's history.
The new line is a sharp departure from the militant and combative, class-struggle, confrontational style that NUMSA has developed over the years. It implicitly acknowledges that several major campaigns of the union — for a living wage in the industry, for centralised bargaining and even for job security — will have to take a back seat, or at least be revisited in the context of the new approach.
The new approach boils down to accepting responsibility, with employers, for finding solutions to the crisis of the metal and auto industries and putting forward what it thinks needs to be done to make the manufacturing sector competitive in the world market. By adopting this position, the union hopes to deliver jobs, skills, education, social benefits and affordable consumer goods for workers.
Such an approach is one employers will no doubt welcome. Although it's implicit rather than explicit, NUMSA can be expected to
settle for below-inflation wage increases over the three years, as well as to give commitments on maintaining stability by trying to keep industrial action to a minimum. In addition, NUMSA will probably be far more flexible on centralised bargaining — with the introduction a two-tiered bargaining system being mooted.
It is things like these the union will inevitably have to "offer" in order to bargain a key role for itself in co-managing the restructuring of the industries along the lines it is suggesting. But the big challenge for employers is whether they can accept the kind of German-style co-determination approach that underlies NUMSA's proposals.
NUMSA's scheme rests on its belief that a major contribution to rebuilding South African industry can be achieved by using education, training and work organisation to drive wages policy. It wants more modern and flatter management structures, a life-long career path for all workers and a more skilled and less supervised work force. The union is also calling for a new grade system, which would include flexible skills, rather than narrow task or craft definitions.
NUMSA will also continue to fight for a 40-hour week, possibly in exchange for flexible working arrangements, for training leave as a right for all workers and for a common "benefit package" for the industry, including normal leave, bonus, retirement, medical, parental and other benefits. These could form part of the social wage component negotiated through a reconstruction accord.
The issues of tariffs, export incentive schemes, sector industry authorities and industry protection policies are also addressed in some detail. The proposals are within the context of defending the industry, while radically restructuring it to meet the challenges of the world market.
Given the central role NUMSA has played in fashioning COSATU policies, the majority of COSATU unions are likely to pick up the mew direction in their own industries under an overall vision of a reconstruction pact with the ANC for post-apartheid South Africa.