Unions must adapt to the new world
More than 10 years ago, the global financial crisis captured and threatened to collapse the world’s economic system. Due to the globalised nature of business operations, no part of the world was immune to the consequences of the crisis.
Its aftermath — the loss of faith in capitalism’s ability to self-regulate — led to a renewed focus on the role of regulators and oversight bodies in managing the system for the benefit of society at large.
The trend to bail out affected banks on the basis that they were too important to fail became the preferred way of managing the fallout. To finance the bailouts, politicians and regulators tapped into avenues that had never been explored before.
The co-ordination of the rescue efforts meant that the financial system was saved from its self-imposed crisis. Over time, the main players — the big banks — recovered and are now even more influential than before. The bankers who managed to live through the crisis have, since then, become wealthier on the back of the global recovery.
Naturally, this has led to suspicions that the entire bailout model simply forced society to pay the cost for the follies of a reckless private sector.
In the immediate aftermath of the crisis, the world slid into recession and job losses escalated. Since then, the global economy has recovered but also forced the various stakeholders — governments, regulators and ratings agencies — to adapt to a post-crisis world.
In addition, the rise in the digitisation of work has meant that workers themselves have had to adapt to a new world of work.
Unfortunately, not all workers have managed to keep up with these changes. Part of the problem is that the advances in technology occur at a pace that far exceeds the ability of employees to adapt.
When this happens, affected employees become progressively less employable, and this leads to lay-offs and the casualisation of the labour force. It is when such trends develop that the role of the trade unions becomes ever more critical.
SA’s largest trade union — Cosatu — provides a useful exhibit of the impact of the evolution in economic patterns and its impact on workers.
As a union created to champion the cause of the workers, its role and responsibility includes the duty to help its workers adapt to the changing demands of the workplace.
Regrettably, it has failed to manage this process in any substantive fashion.
As a consequence, it is now faced with declining membership and diminishing relevance.
As the world moves towards the digital revolution and the new employee needs to be a lifelong learner, Cosatu’s inability to provide leadership in this regard makes it difficult for it to appeal to new members.
Rather, its complicity in the political battles of its alliance partner — the ANC — has removed its focus from core issues of workers to the political battlefield. As a result, not only has it failed to appeal to a new constituency but it has also lost significant affiliates, which were sacrificed at the altar of political drama.
As it announced new leadership this week, one couldn’t help but wonder whether Cosatu, and trade unions in general, still have relevance to the workers of SA.
Given the fact that most of the key issues that underpinned the founding of the trade union movement in this country — protection of worker rights, for example — have now been entrenched in labour legislation over time, and perhaps it is time for the trade union movement to find new ways of engaging with its constituents.
The reality is that for as long as the world of work keeps evolving, the unions will only be useful to their members if they can start focusing on the question of how to keep the workforce ahead of the curve.
Failure to do that means that the rise of the machines will simply mean a rise in the unemployed.
And in a country like ours, where unemployment is a major crisis, one can only hope that unions such as Cosatu will make peace with the fact that,
10 years after the global financial crisis, it is not just the bankers and the regulators that need to adapt, but also the workforce that keeps capitalism viable.
Rise of the machines changes the game