in-the-media

Trash 'n pay - new bill will put squeeze on unions

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 19:37:02 +0100

There’s nothing the DA likes better than to find one of its own proposals being debated seriously by government and the ANC. And yes, it’s finally happened. DA MP Ian Ollis (full disclosure: Ollis is an occasional columnist for the Daily Maverick) was cock a hoop on Wednesday. He says that Nedlac (that forum where business, government and labour get together to thrash out complex issues… usually without the prying guise of the media. Probably the reason why it gets some stuff done!) is now considering a proposal that he’s submitted as a Private Members Bill. It would see unions being held legally liable for goods damaged by their members during a strike. Ollis says this submission now has the backing of the Labour department. The department refused to comment, no doubt for very sound political reasons.

This is a bill that has Cosatu apoplectic. Its argument has always been that this would be a restriction on the right of a union to strike. And the fact that it is even being considered is a massive step back for the federation.

Then we have a judgment, handed down by the Supreme Court of Appeal at the end of September. It relates to a violent protest held by our good friends Satawu (the transport and allied workers union. They were famous a while ago for the number of people its members allegedly threw out of trains during a big strike in 2006) in Cape Town in 2006. During the protest, union members ran amok. At issue was who should pay for the damage caused. There were several applicants, including the City of Cape Town, several hawkers whose goods were stolen and damaged, and a couple of motorists whose cars were attacked. The Western Cape High Court ruled in favour of the applicants and against the union (do you wanna know who the judge was…in the Western Cape, big political case, ruled in a case that matters to the DA? It was Judge John Hlophe. Really.) The case is going to Constitution Hill.

The union movement has argued that to make unions liable for damage caused during a strike or a protest amounts to a denial of the right to free assembly. The court has really ruled that it is not a denial of the right to assembly, but a limitation of it. There is a big difference here. All rights are balanced, and thus are limited. But they cannot be denied. You don’t have the right to say anything you like, there is a hate speech limitation. The same principle is involved here, and this must be one of the more important limitations on the right to assembly that has been established since 1994. As the court puts it, “In the past the majority of the population was subjected to the tyranny of the state. We cannot now be subjected to the tyranny of the mob.”

The key element of whether unions can in the end be held responsible for damage caused by strikes or protests is the element of foreseeability. If the damage or violence can be foreseen, then the union can be held responsible. This is a key legal point, and a key political point. It will be easy for the DA to say you can foresee the damage, thus the protest cannot happen. But it will also be politically palatable for the ANC to say in public that it’s acting against violent protests, because of concerns for the safety of citizens. Certainly the hawkers who lost money as a result of the Satawu protest will back them. And of course, anyone with any experience of our strikes will be able to foresee the violence and damage that planned action will cause.

So the question now is how will the unions respond. Cosatu has the usual two avenues, the political road and the legal road. In court, it seems it will have to argue hard around this. No right is supposed to be absolute; surely the right to assemble and the right to strike can be no greater than any other right. Politically though, it’s going to be quite tough. Cosatu can either decide to back President Jacob Zuma or not. If it does, fine and well. If it doesn’t, it’ll be playing into the hands of that right wing demagogue it doesn’t like particularly much. And give him some oxygen when he is most desperately running out of it. So in the end, it will probably have to stay with Zuma. And this gives him a free hand in dealing with the politics of how to control the violence of unions.

As I’ve said before, South African politics still sees the pendulum swing from side to side. Nothing stays fixed for too long. It seems sometimes that we are forever condemned to the tyranny of union power, “rule by the mob”; when someone feels there are too many upstanding rubbish bins in the Joburg CBD, we all know they will be upstanding no longer. This would appear to be the start of a much broader process. Unions will say their rights and the rights of their workers are being eroded. But the broader citizenry is unlikely to agree. And the person who controls the middle ground of our politics will make plenty of hay with that.

Labour Department ‘takes leaf out of DA book’

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 19:35:09 +0100

The Department of Labour supported a private members’ bill submitted by the DA that would make unions legally liable when their members looted and damaged property during a strike, Ian Ollis, the party’s spokesman on labour, said yesterday.

He said that during a briefing to the portfolio committee on labour about the passage of the four controversial labour amendment bills through Nedlac, the negotiating chamber for the government, labour and business, the department revealed that it had inserted similar amendments to the DA’s position on strike violence.

However, Labour Department spokesman Page Boikanyo refused to comment, saying the bills were currently before the government’s social partners at Nedlac.

Ollis said the move by the department was a de facto endorsement of a core DA labour policy proposal, and a hugely positive development.

He added that he would carefully study the next draft amendments of the Labour Relations Act (LRA).

In October 2010, the DA submitted the private members’ bill, which proposed that unions be held accountable for their members’ misconduct during strikes.

Early this month, the SA Local Government Association voiced its support for the bill.

Cosatu has vowed that it will strongly oppose attempts in Parliament at passing the amendments.

The labour federation said the amendments were clearly aimed at bashing unions, weakening workers’ power and eroding union members’ democratic and constitutional rights to strike.

Cosatu argued that making unions liable for the financial consequences of any looting and damage of property would bankrupt the unions.

The draft labour bills are in a state of flux currently. Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant publicly called for the finalisation of the bills by October.

This deadline has passed without the labour bills being finalised.

The amendment bills seek to change the LRA, the Basic Conditions of Employment Act and the Employment Equity Act.

The Employment Services Bill seeks to restrict the operation of labour brokers instead of banning them outright in accordance with Cosatu’s wishes.

However, Sherisa Rajah, a senior associate of employment practice at attorneys Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, recently said it appeared unlikely that the bills would be promulgated into law by May next year, as Oliphant wished.

She said: “While workers seek greater protection and job security, employers will be hoping that any additional restrictions contained in the final bills will be limited to the bare minimum.

“This is especially true in industries faced with small profit margins where further limitations could push those businesses teetering on the edge of viability into the abyss,” Rajah added.

COSATU needs violence to get its own way - Ian Ollis

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 10:25:35 +0100

COSATU opposes DA bill because it needs violence to get its own way

Yesterday, COSATU rubbished the DA's legislative proposal to make unions responsible for the misconduct of its members during strikes. It claimed that it already "puts measures in place to prevent strike violence" and that any legislation to hold unions accountable for such violence is therefore "out of order".

Actually, the contrary is true. COSATU has never attempted to prevent its members from wreaking havoc during strikes. Furthermore, COSATU has never disciplined unruly members who trash public property.

The reason for this is simple: violence and vandalism is used by COSATU as a bargaining chip in wage negotiations. That is why violence and vandalism is consented to (tacitly or otherwise) by the Union Federation leadership.

In 2007, for example, COSATU General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi condoned strike violence on the basis that workers "will soon be angry, they will be frustrated." He suggested that because strike violence was likely to occur, the negotiating parties should swiftly find a resolution that will be to the workers' liking. Please see the IOL article in reference to this incident by clicking here.

In August this year, a SAMWU strike caused chaos across Cape Town, with street vendors' goods destroyed and stolen, shop and car windows smashed and members of the public intimidated. COSATU Provincial Secretary in the Western Cape, Tony Ehrenreich, refused to condemn the violence and destruction - even after being publicly invited to do so by the Mayor of Cape Town, Patricia de Lille.

Similarly, in a speech to the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference in February this year, Zwelinzima Vavi said, "Almost every week we read reports of violent community protests over service delivery. Workers are very often forced to take to the streets and go on strike to win a modest wage increase." This is yet another implicit admission from Mr. Vavi that strike violence is simply part and parcel of the normal negotiation process.

COSATU's leadership is in a position to keep workers calm, keep strikes regulated and to maintain general order. They choose not to do so, because violence and vandalism strengthens COSATU's bargaining position. This puts pressure on employers to deal with strikes swiftly in order to stave off violence and damage to property.

Our labour legislation was written in good faith, with the hope that unions would take the sensible responsibility to avoid violence and intimidation during strikes. COSATU have failed to do so. This is precisely why we need laws that hold unions directly responsible for strike damage, as I have proposed in my Private Members' Bill.

Labour bill deadline passes as clashes slow progress

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 09:10:12 +0100

Business Day - 04/11/2011

THE Department of Labour’s October deadline for finalisation of amendments bills to SA’s labour legislation has passed with no discernible progress.

The bills were the first proposed amendments to SA’s labour laws in years and the parties involved — the government, business and labour — have described them as delicate due to their far-reaching implications for the labour market.

Last month Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant said she wanted the bills to be finalised by discussion groups at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) by the end of the month.

She wanted the bills enacted into law by the end of May.

The bills, which include a proposal to criminalise labour broking and another to limit temporary employment, were brought up last December.

Their definition of temporary work, employment equity rules and other ambiguities upset business, and resulted in disagreements.

By end-September, the parties to the discussions had agreed on only one of six principal issues, according to the Democratic Alliance’s spokesman on labour, Ian Ollis.

He has been critical of the bills, saying they were initially poorly drafted and this has slowed the process of making the first amendments in SA’ s labour laws in more than a decade.

"Minister Oliphant was wrong to set a deadline for the Nedlac process to be finalised by the end of October. There is too much work to be done," Mr Ollis said.

But yesterday, Business Unity SA’s executive director of social policy, Vikki Harbhajan, said regardless of the number of outstanding policy clashes between labour, business and the government, progress was being made. "The October deadline has passed. There are a number of issues sitting on the table. The engagements are complicated and the issues need more time.

"There are a number of challenges. The biggest challenge is the bills’ job impact. We are hoping that the final result of each bill will have the maximum positive effect on job creation," she said.

The controversial bills include three that amend existing legislation and one set of new proposals.

The Labour Relations Amendment Bill says "an employee must be employed permanently unless the employer can establish a justification for employment on a fixed term". This limits temporary work.

The Basic Conditions of Employment Bill makes it a crime for employers not to pay wages and overtime.

The Employment Equity Amendment Bill requires that equal pay be paid for equal value, with contraventions being subject to penalties of 2%-10% of turnover.

Business feels this penalty would bankrupt many small businesses.

The Public Employment Services Bill is new legislation and not an amendment. It seeks to make it illegal for agents to be responsible for workers they have placed with a third-party company.

Ms Harbhajan said Nedlac met yesterday to discuss how the bills deal with labour broking.

Compensation cover for domestic workers

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 11:44:34 +0100

The Daily News
Domestic workers are among the few South Africans who cannot claim from the Compensation Fund if they are injured on duty, the DA has said.

And the party plans to do something about it. DA MP and labour spokesman Ian Ollis announced yesterday that his party had prepared a “comprehensive action plan” to allow domestic workers the same compensation benefits enjoyed by most other categories of workers.

He noted that, aside from soldiers and police officers, who have their own compensation mechanisms, domestic workers were the only category of worker in South Africa to be excluded from the Compensation Fund and could therefore not claim for injuries or illnesses sustained in the workplace.

The DA plan would draft a Private Members’ Bill to be introduced in Parliament which would amend the existing Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act of 1993 “in order to expand the (fund’s) coverage to include domestic workers”.

“The implication for domestic workers will be profound. It will mean that, whenever a domestic worker becomes injured or disabled because of work, they will be eligible for compensation of their medical expenses, compensation for loss of income and could potentially receive punitive damages if employers were negligent or knowingly complicit in any injuries to domestic workers.”

Ollis said it was “unacceptable” that domestic workers did not enjoy the same rights as other workers and that “years and years of promises” from the Labour Department to do something about it had so far come to nought.

Another step would be to get Parliament to ratify the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention on Domestic Workers, which was passed earlier this year. The convention binds signatories to, amongst other things, “take measures to ensure that domestic workers, like workers generally, enjoy fair terms of employment as well as decent working conditions”.

It also binds signatories to “ensure that domestic workers enjoy conditions that are not less favourable than those applicable to workers generally in respect of social security protection, including with respect to maternity”.

And it urges member states to implement “means to facilitate the payment of social security contributions, including in respect of domestic workers working for multiple employers, for instance, through a system of simplified payment”.

Ollis said his party would call for the introduction of a simplified registration and payment “one stop shop” so that employers could use a single mechanism to register workers for both the Unemployment Insurance Fund and the Compensation Fund.

“And it won’t be expensive. Contributions to the (fund) are made by employers on a monthly basis. Individual employers will pay a small fraction of the total value of domestic workers’ salaries into the fund – this will likely be below one percent of the domestic worker’s salary,” he explained.

The third step in the DA plan would involve a national education drive by the Compensation Fund and the Labour Department “to inform domestic workers and their employers of their rights”.

“Domestic workers have been treated as second-class citizens for too long. It is high time that their role in building our nation is properly acknowledged and they are afforded the same rights as other workers,” said Ollis.

The ILO has urged countries to do more to improve the conditions of employment for domestic workers. In the preamble to the domestic worker convention, the organisation notes that “domestic work continues to be undervalued and invisible and is mainly carried out by women and girls, many of whom are migrants or members of disadvantaged communities and who are particularly vulnerable to discrimination in respect of conditions of employment and of work, and to other abuses of human rights”.

South Africa is not yet a signatory to the convention.

What happened to 'the year of the job?': DA

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 16:00:45 +0100

Business-Live

12 September, 2011

In February, President Jacob Zuma declared 2011 "the year of the job" but it has turned out to be the opposite, the opposition Democratic Alliance said on Monday.

This followed the release of the latest Adcorp Employment Index indicating that employment declined by 2.1% during August.

"At a time when we should be turning the jobs crisis around, we are sliding further backwards," said Ian Ollis, DA Spokesperson on labour.

Ollis said the government needed to act now if it was to prevent further job losses.

"This much is clear from the Adcorp Index, which also shows that many employed South Africans are not being fully utilised in their jobs. This raises the spectre of further job-shedding as companies try to improve cost-efficiency in this difficult economic climate."

Ollis added that there was so much the government could do to improve the prospects of unemployed people in SA.

"A DA-run government would implement a youth wage subsidy, would reform labour laws to be more employment friendly, would boost small business development by giving a tax holiday to newly established small businesses, would increase investment in infrastructure maintenance and development, would provide opportunity vouchers for young people and would give tax rebates for skills development programmes."

When the President said that 2011 would be "the year of the job", he raised the expectations of millions of unemployed South Africans, Ollis noted.

"Since then, he has dashed their hopes by failing to make the tough choices that would grow our economy and create millions of jobs. What will he say to the jobless when he stands before Parliament in February next year?"

The Adcorp Employment Index for August also revealed that the employment decline at an annual rate of 2.1% meant that 49,306 workers had lost their jobs during the month.

Employment declined most sharply in the manufacturing (19.9%), mining (19.3%) and construction (16.0%) sectors, despite sharply rising export prices for commodities and basic beneficiated manufactured products, the index found.

In line with the declines in the manufacturing and mining sectors, employment of machine operators declined by 5.95% and of technical professionals by 3.8%.

Employment by government continued to rise (6.2%), with the public sector now accounting for all the job creation in the economy for 2011 as a whole.

The index furthermore showed that the unofficial sector continued to create jobs, employing 16,917 additional people in August, contributing to the so-called "informalisation" of the South African workforce.

Let's agree on one goal: creating jobs

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 15:51:45 +0100

The Daily Maverick

22 September, 2011

If we want to end unemployment, we are going to have to focus relentlessly on job creation and all agree that that is our most important target. We cannot aim the economy at achieving all things to all men.

Making an economy grow and creating jobs will take specific changes to the economy. Wanting to create jobs will do nothing. Setting the goal of job creation will create nothing, and even developing a document with the words “New Growth” or “Jobs” in the title will do nothing either. I’ve had three conversations recently with three business leaders who are at the top of the pile in their respective industries. Two of the companies are medium sized and one is large. All three would be classified as previously disadvantaged: black male middle aged; Indian male, middle aged; Chinese female middle aged. All three believe that the economy is over regulated and all three have ideas about what needs changing. Let’s examine these three examples to point out specific policy and legislation that needs to be changed to cause them, and many other senior business leaders like them, to employ more people (the right people) to make their companies grow, and in so doing help alleviate the unemployment problem.

The first conversation was with the Indian male who has built a successful medium sized company from scratch in the electrical industry with a R200 million per annum turnover. He is extremely successful, having gone on his own after being a BEE partner in another firm. His company has recently been subject to strike action and experienced union violence first hand at the factory gate. I asked him whether he would be prepared to take on more staff and under what circumstances he would be prepared to do so. He responded with three points:

1. Collective bargaining must go. The presumption inherent in collective bargaining is that all workers at a particular level are equal and deserve pay. This is simply not true. Productivity verses laziness is a key factor. Workers need to be paid according to contribution to the business and the product.

2. Productivity must be pushed up. Workers have an entitlement attitude – you owe me something as an employer. There is no respect for the workplace or the need to be productive. Attitude may be hard to quantify but it affects the work environment and rubs off on colleagues.

3. Shifts must be re-introduced in order to sweat the assets, turning the production cycle twice in a 24 hour period instead of once. The overtime regulations make it difficult for employers to run a good shift work programme. This will also distribute the electricity load on Eskom throughout the day.

The second discussion I had was with the Chinese South African woman. She co-runs a family business in the chemicals industry. She made a comment that will stick in my mind. She was discussing the problem with hiring and firing of staff and said: “In this country, it is easier to divorce your wife than to fire a lazy employee”. The point she was making has been made by others: until employers are able to fire lazy or dishonest workers, they will be reluctant to employ additional workers. Not all welders are equally productive or enthusiastic or punctual. If you cannot weed out those who are a liability or cost the company more than they produce, they make the South African workforce unproductive by international standards and push up the price of our products. Employers seem reticent to employ more people than absolutely essential until they can weed out the bad eggs. We should probably lengthen the period of probation and make greater use of apprenticeships also.

The final discussion I had was with a black entrepreneur in the mining sector, who is a senior leader of an extremely successful, large, black-owned mining company that was started as a greenfield development. There was no taking over shares or fronting. This is the real deal. I met him on the plane to Cape Town and we chatted for two hours.

I asked the mining magnate what he would do about our problem of empowerment and unemployment. His first reaction was – shut down the employment equity legislation. He believes that it is mere box-ticking and window dressing, and preventing the right people from being employed in the right positions. Instead he believes that black entrepreneurs like himself should be given support and tax breaks by the government for taking all of the risk and for employing thousands of people on new ventures. He decried the lack of support for entrepreneurs and SMMEs. With the background of the risk and difficulty in starting a new venture that is labour intensive, one can see why he made those remarks.

Richard Pike, Loane Sharp and Ted Black in their new easy-reading book on the South African unemployment problem “The New Divide”, make the point that if we want to sort out our economic problems, we have to have one goal: creating jobs – “two objectives is no objective”. If we want to end unemployment, we are going to have to focus relentlessly on job creation and all agree that that is our most important target. We cannot aim the economy at achieving all things to all men. This will result in endless naval-gazing. The three business leaders are illustrating the constraints on business that are keeping the unemployed out of work. Legislators would do well to listen.

Unfortunately the tripartite alliance has too many special interest groups and too many constituencies that need placating, thus policy often becomes a dead-end street. The left and the centre will seldom agree and the compromise is seldom practical or focused. Did I ever tell you the one about a horse designed by a committee…? DM

Ministers in R2.5m 'Travelgate'

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 06:33:33 +0100

Times-live
26 July, 2011

The government has been hit by another hired car scandal, this time involving the Department of Public Service and Administration.

The department spent R1.4-million on hiring luxury cars for its deputy ministers for a year because there were "no funds available" to buy an official vehicle.

This was revealed yesterday in parliament by Public Service and Administration Minister Richard Baloyi.

Baloyi admitted that it had taken his department a year to buy an official vehicle for the deputy minister.

Roy Padayachie - who was Deputy Public Service and Administration Minister between May 2009 and November 2010, before being promoted to Communications Minister when president Jacob Zuma reshuffled his cabinet last year - used R1.2-million to hire cars between March and November 2010.

Baloyi said "the position of deputy minister was a new addition to the structure and thus could not be budgeted for accordingly".

He said "there were no funds available, therefore the department had to resort to hiring a vehicle".

When Ayanda Dlodlo took over from Padayachie in November, the department kept up the practice, spending R200000 on hiring cars for her.

"The vehicles had to be hired because the deputy minister was without an official permanent vehicle and thus had to rely on hired vehicles. Her official vehicle could only be procured during March 2011. On other occasions the deputy minister was working outside Gauteng and Western Cape, where she has an official vehicle" said Baloyi.

DA MP Ian Ollis slammed Baloyi, saying a car could have been bought for less than R1.4-million.

"It seems very reckless to do that with taxpayers' money," Ollis said.

Baloyi himself has spent more than R357000 on hiring cars since March 2010, saying this was because he was carrying out official duties in other provinces, away from Pretoria and Cape Town, where his official vehicles are parked.

Ministers and their deputies have spent more than R2.5-million on hired cars in the past year alone.

DA welcomes Gordhan’s view on labour

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 06:24:09 +0100

Business Report
August 15, 2011

The time is ripe for a debate on current labour laws, the Democratic Alliance said on Monday in response to Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan's admission that South Africa might have to change its views on the labour dispensation.

“Minister Gordhan's words are a step in the right direction,” said DA MP Ian Ollis in a statement.

“The latest Stats SA quarterly labour force survey indicates that official unemployment has surged to 25.7 percent, with 174,000 more people added to the ranks of the unemployed in the last three months,” he said.

“Since 2009, when President Jacob Zuma first took office, South Africa has shed a net total of 902,000 jobs.”

Gordhan said earlier on Monday that South Africa might only create four million jobs by 2025 on its current growth trajectory.

“This is not enough to make a significant dent in unemployment,” the minister told an internal auditors conference in Johannesburg.

Gordhan suggested that South Africa might have to relax its labour laws in certain cases to grow jobs.

“We may have to change the way we see the labour dispensation in South Africa,” he said.

For example, a balance needed to be found to retain the jobs of the 10,000 people working at clothing factories in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal, while still allowing them to earn a reasonable wage and keep the factories open.

Factories in the area had threatened to close down and relocate to Lesotho or Botswana if they were forced to pay minimum wages.

Gordhan said laws might also have to be relaxed to allow young people to enter the workplace and gain skills and experience at lower wages, but not at the expense of people who already had jobs.

Unless such changes were made, “we will not be able to make the breakthrough we need to create jobs in South Africa,” Gordhan said.

Ollis said the DA had been advocating for a comprehensive jobs and growth-oriented policy revision.

“This would include the relaxation of labour regulations, a tax holiday for newly established small scale enterprises, a general wage subsidy for employers, youth opportunity vouchers to help young people study or start businesses, support for developing industries through industrial development zones and export processing zones, and a drive to reposition South Africa as a preferred investment destination,” he said. - Sapa

Lessons from Geneva

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 22:19:04 +0100

The Daily Maverick - 28th July 2011

A founder member of the United Nations’ biggest division, the centenarian International Labour Organisation, South Africa once again showed leadership, discipline and diplomacy in what is arguably the world’s most demanding tripartite gathering.

I have now twice attended the International Labour Organisation’s conference in Geneva. The ILO is the largest division within the United Nations. It’s 100 years old this year and South Africa was a founder member in 1911. We have been participating ever since. The ILO has the general task of setting and overseeing international labour standards. Every year in the northern summer all 183 member states gather at the UN buildings and ILO head office in Geneva to propose, debate and adopt standards and resolutions on work and workers. It is a tripartite system of business, labour and government and if you can picture a committee room with representatives from those three sectors times 183 countries sitting in three blocks and negotiating a 25-page resolution in four or five languages with interpreters and drafting or amending a text simultaneously in three languages, that will give you some idea of how it operates.

What impressed me most about this conference over the past two sessions was the performance of the South African delegates. Having experienced some extremely poor service from civil servants in SA, I witnessed the total opposite at the ILO. South Africa completely dominated many debates. Our representatives often spoke on behalf of the entire African continent and we chaired several of the committees and panels. Watching chairpersons from other countries, I must say we can be proud of our team. We certainly demonstrated the best leadership skills. Our representatives also often win debates and form global thinking on several issues, and as a result of Codesa and Nedlac, we are used to tripartism and this level of sophisticated debate. They are racially representative of the population of SA. Some of our women held the chair of 183 countries and, unlike examples in our national Parliament, these individuals were there because of their abilities, no tokenism was apparent. It makes one wonder why we choose our foreign representatives so well, yet often choose so badly at home.

The ILO, however, expects countries that participate to adopt resolutions that are passed and amend their own national laws to fit these minimum standards. It then “polices’” countries who do not comply with these standards or who are guilty of human rights violations, particularly as they affect governments, workers or employers. During this year’s conference I sat in on the committee tasked with discipline (the application of standards committee) and watched Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Congo, Panama and other countries being dragged before it and facing censure. Swaziland was accused of mistreating union officials and the media by imprisoning them and ill-treating them in prison.

The real shocker for me was the case against the Congo. Part of this year’s report on the Congo reads: “In the Kivus Province armed groups and military units were engaged in mining and forced civilians to work. These civilians were subjected to blackmail, illegal taxation and sexual exploitation. Women and girls were kept by both armed groups and the state military as sexual slaves and suffered further violence.” I almost wept listening to the accounts. What was even more infuriating, was that the DRC did not even pitch up to defend its case or explain. They were severely denounced by all speakers. It made me feel angry at my fellow Africans in the Congo.

Unfortunately the power of the application of standards committee and the ILO to discipline, enforce or punish such cases is very limited. They issue sanctions, embarrass such countries in the media, use peer pressure and ultimately the Security Council gets to deal with pariah states. I think if a documentary were made of the behaviour of the soldiers and government of the Congo and the rebels there, I believe the world would be shocked in the extreme.

The story doesn’t end there, however. During this year’s conference, governing body titular (full) members and deputy members had to be elected again for a three-year term. South Africa submitted its nomination fairly late in the process, as I understand, although we have been on the governing body for many years. We began to hear rumours during the day preceding the vote, that Western countries, possibly with the help of certain of South Africa’s neighbours, were lobbying for other African countries to be elected this time and for South Africa to be excluded because we were too outspoken, wouldn’t toe the line and had been in leadership too long. Countries more compliant to Western powers were more desirable. All of this, of course, is conjecture. South Africa, it seems, had not done much lobbying.

The results the next day were, however, concrete and quite astounding. South Africa was not chosen from among the 183 governments to serve on the governing body. However, what was far, far more telling was that the world’s voting countries chose Congo to sit as a full titular member on the governing body and two other countries under strong censure for human rights violations, Zimbabwe and Sudan, were elected as deputy governing body members. Now let me put this in perspective. In the same 24-hour period, the world denounces these three countries for extreme human rights violations and then almost simultaneously elects them to the highest leadership of the same organisation that is censuring them. These elections are democratic, on a one-country, one-vote basis. It’s shocking. It left me with the feeling that the UN and its institutions need serious reform. The absence of ethics in this kind of behaviour left me wondering where the UN and the ILO are heading? Are pariah states being cultivated by those with more power?

My final observation of the UN came about as a result of attending a session of what is known as an “Informal” sitting of the UN Human Rights Council. South Africa was proposing a full resolution on gay rights regarding violence meted out to the gay community in the form of “corrective rape” and similar abuses. South Africa chaired the sitting and was supported by many countries that would normally support gay rights, but only Egypt, Botswana (and previously Ghana) had attended from Africa, and almost no country from the Organisation of Islamic States. I was suddenly imposed upon to give an unprepared speech and spoke about the urgency of setting international standards and calling on countries to end violence against the LGBT community. Egypt became quite upset by the fact that South Africa was going ahead with the resolution without first caucusing with the Africa group. The chairman pushed ahead. After several more meetings to refine the proposal, it was formally put to the vote at the Human Rights Commission and passed 23 votes to 19 with three abstentions. South Africa thus became the first country to get a gay rights resolution approved by the UN Human Rights Commission. I was again proud to be a South African.

The world is clearly a complex place in which to operate and internationally countries do not often appear to take the moral high ground, but tend to feather their own interests only. I left the ILO and the UN with the impression that the UN as an Institution is sorely needed, but that a much-reformed UN is going to be required if we want to move towards better international relations, better working conditions and human rights being protected and defended de rigueur in every corner of the globe. DM