Labour-employee accord in SA grim
WEF ranked country lowest of 137 in competitiveness report
THE country’s labouremployee relations rank among the worst in the world and this was chasing investors away.
This is according to the World Economic Forum’s World Competitiveness report which was released this week. The WEF report ranked South Africa last out of 137.
Economist Dawie Roodt from the Efficiency Group said South Africans should be alarmed.
“Who would throw his money into a country which has the worst labour-employee relationship?” he asked.
Roodt said what added to the country’s lowest ranking in competitiveness was the political uncertainty during former president Jacob Zuma’s tenure.
The poor ranking is directly linked to the low levels of trust between employers and employees in the country – a mistrust that has been cultivated over many years.
South Africa’s largest labour federation, Cosatu, said it was “shocked” by the report.
Cosatu president S’dumo Dlamini said he had not expected the WEF to paint such a grim picture.
He said he hoped that President Cyril Ramaphosa would address this uncertainty and also use his labour skills to redeem labour-employee relations. This, though, would be easier said than done, said Roodt.
The report’s findings come at a critical time for the country, as it approaches the height of the strike season, said Gawie Cillié, employment relations expert and lecturer at the University of Stellenbosch Business School (USB).
Cillié said mistrust between employers and workers, coupled with “poor reliance on professional management, the country’s capacity to retain and attract talent, as well as the high unemployment and poverty levels, have all contributed to a negative labour-employee relationship.”
“The efficiency of a country’s labour market is directly linked to gross domestic product, long-term growth, overall prosperity and competitiveness on a global scale.
“The unhealthy state of our labour-employee relations will have a direct impact on organisational performance which can seriously threaten our ability to create a sustainable, lucrative and productive future for the next generation,” said Cillié.
Despite an enabling statutory framework and a strong tradition of collective bargaining and labour mediation dating back to the late 1970s, there was little evidence of workplace relations today living up to the stated purposes of the Labour Relations Act, said Cillié.
Cosatu has further warned that the unhealthy labouremployee relations could seriously threaten the creation of a productive future for the next generation.
Dlamini said deaths in local mines – the latest being seven mineworkers who recently died at the Sibanye-stillwater Driefontein mine near Carletonville – had further dented the country’s labour-employee relations.
Even though the Health and Safety Act had been amended recently, employers were not respecting the laws, said Dlamini.
“Employees need the opportunity to influence decisions made, have clarity on why certain decisions were made by management, and be the judge on how fair they were.”
Cosatu would be doing regular inspections to detect the challenges that workers were facing.
“This will help us to directly deal with issues because studies like the recent one are paining us in a worrying manner,” said Dlamini.