Employers don't have the guts to invoke dismissals
November 16, 2009
IT IS incredibly strange and almost sad that our largest institutional employers cannot get it together to invoke the Labour Relations Act ("Hell no, we won't go", Business Report0, November 12). In essence once management has decided that an employee has broken their trust, it is a simple matter to embark upon a disciplinary process.
An independent chairperson would hear all the facts, ensure that the evidence is properly tested and make a recommendation to the board. If the recommendation is one of dismissal and the board still feels that the trust is broken then they merely need to inform the individual that he or she has been fired. If the individual wishes to challenge either the process or the outcome, then the state has put into place full functioning adjudication processes which will determine fairness or otherwise.
It is a sad state of affairs when the managerial prerogative has completely destroyed large organisations such as Eskom, Armscor and Athletics South Africa. State enterprises are wasting enormous sums of money in keeping sometimes completely incompetent managerial staff in place because they have not had the wherewithal to invoke a dismissal.
Michael Bagraim
Cape Town
It's time white and black work together
I see that black workers are striking at a mine because of racism. I do not have a problem with this, but surely white miners should also be striking for the same reason.
Not in 100 years will a white group, who presently make up about 8 percent of our population, manage to take over this country and yet 1``5 years after the establishment of the "rainbow nation" nearly every advert for employment in South Africa, including Eskom, the mines, municipalities and the government, include the condition "preference will be given to the previously disadvantaged", and so on.
The sad part is that whites who are fortunate to obtain employment in state or municipal departments and improve the performance of the people they work for are called "racists" when they try to lay down discipline and boost productivity. Bobby Godsell of Eskom is an example.
Young white males are leaving this country in their thousands because of the penalties for being white. They are the sons and grandsons of those whites who voted for an end to apartheid.
These young white men with their talents should be used to help this country to recover from the dreadful situation we are in - we have reached the stage where people are asking "where is the country succeeding?" I am not suggesting that white men will solve all problems but they could make a contribution and as team players improve the lot of everyone.
Look at Eskom, SAA, the Land Bank, the SABC, education, most municipalities, Home Affairs, state hospitals, Armscor, Athletics SA and even Robben Island. They are all in the doldrums.
Alan C Brown
Rustenburg
Whose problem is land restitution anyway?
The land restitution article by Donwald Pressly (Business Report, November 11), refers.
Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti has given notice that the willing buyer-willing seller concept for land restitution is to be scrapped in favour of a system of average hectare price offers and expropriation because the process is lagging far behind. He went on to say that the full budget for land restitution had been spent in the first quarter of this financial year "as prices demanded by farmers mounted".
The implication is clear - the intransigent farmers demanding exorbitant prices for their land are to blame for the lack of progress in land restitution.
This is a story that is regularly trotted out by either the land claims commissioner or the minister but it is unfortunately not supported by the facts.
Numerous farms in the Alldays district of Limpopo have been claimed, the claims validated and the successful claims gazetted. Valuations have been done, prices agreed and accepted by the farmers, but three years later the farmers have still not been paid and of course the land has yet to be restored to the claimants. Can this be blamed on intransigent farmers?
In Mpumalanga, seven different farmers owning portions of Sandford farm near Hazyview have had their farms successfully claimed, prices agreed and yet over five years later they too have still not been paid and the land has not been restored to the successful claimants. Is this also the fault of intransigent farmers?
There are many similar instances but either because of finger trouble or lack of funds the government has been unable to progress the restitution. To consistently blame the farmers is incorrect and a transparent attempt to placate the beneficiaries who are being let down by the government.
It would be interesting to hear from the minister or land claims commissioner how they feel about the demise of the Oaks, Champagne, Saringwa, Sandford and now Lisbon Estate. Together they made up well over 1 000ha of citrus exporting farms, all employed plenty of disadvantaged people, all earned foreign exchange and all are now either defunct or will be soon.
A drive through the previously prosperous but now ghost towns of Masvingo, Chinoyi and Karoi and others in Zimbabwe gives you some idea of what awaits us unless the government stops its posturing and attends to its responsibilities.
The recent Eskom debacle doesn't inspire much confidence.
Roy Fury
Dunkeld
There are lessons to be taken from Zim
There are so many lessons that Cosatu and its allies can take from Zimbabwe - here are just three:
Land: much of the prime farming land may now be in black hands, but the people are starving.
Inflation: the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe didn't care about inflation and kept printing money, and the Zimbabwe dollar is now worthless.
Business: the Harare government keeps talking about taking ownership of the mines and foreign business and chases away vital investment from spooked investors.
No longer can any country in the world exist successfully in a vacuum. Sadly Cosatu gives the general impression that "it could never happen here" - big mistake!
What South Africa desperately needs is a government that takes into account the needs of the country as a whole, not just Cosatu's narrow interests.
Derek Excell
Kloof
Is capitalism really shaped by colour?
It is colour much more than nationalisation that "confuses all and sundry". Terry Bell, writing about the nationalisation debate taking place within and between Cosatu and the ANC, ("Nationalisation confuses all and sundry", November 6), reports National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) general secretary Irvin Jim as saying that "the real enemy" of workers is "the capitalist class, which is largely white". Bell notes this identification of the "real enemy" as being all but unanimous within the labour movement.
More is the pity, if Bell is right. The critical question for the labour movement is whether it's the colour of the capitalist class that makes it the real enemy or capitalism that does so. If the former, we need to be told how and why capitalism is shaped by colour; we need also some concrete examples of differences within capitalist behaviour that are attributable to differences in the colour of capital.
Unless these basic requirements are met, one must conclude that persistent references to the colour of "the real enemy" bears testimony to the enduring stranglehold of our apartheid past, such that everything and everyone is still seen mainly, if not entirely, in terms of colour.
In the 1980s trade unions defied apartheid by refusing to complete official labour forms about the "racial" composition of the workforce. Now, 15 years into our post-apartheid non-racial democracy, labour is still stuck in the past it did so much to struggle against. Identifying capital by its colour is enormously advantageous to black capitalists, not only because it promotes BEE (black elite enrichment), but because it does so much to confuse the working class.
By the way, the wealth of Motsepe and Sexwale - that sparked the latest round of the nationalisation debate - combined with the eight other richest South Africans is greater than the combined gross domestic products of 13 African countries. Makes one think, doesn't it?
Jeff Rudin
Cape Town
Eskom debacle doesn't worry foreign investors
I think the foreign investor bogey is over-used in this country. If you look at China, the biggest companies on the Shanghai stock exchange are government-owned and continue to receive government support in the form of subsidies.
The Chinese government continues to intervene in these state-owned entities to nudge them in the direction it wants in order to achieve its national development agenda, replacing management and the board if necessary. Yet China continues to be the biggest recipient of foreign direct investment, amounting to about $60 billion (R447bn) annually or about 2 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP).
Also remember when both Tito Mboweni and Trevor Manuel took over their respective positions the markets were spooked, especially when Mr Manuel referred to amorphous markets; today they are the market favourites.
Short-term currency weakness and a temporary increase of yields on Eskom bonds is not an indication of foreign investor fear but of the normal functioning of financial markets. By the way, neither has happened so far. Indeed, for other reasons, the rand has continued to defy gravity.
I believe our biggest concern should be the impact that the goings-on at Eskom are having on its 37 000 employees. Those people ensured that the company generated R53bn in revenues in the year to March and that we continue to receive electricity.
While the rating agencies do look at management in their rating process, the most important thing that all three agencies highlighted in their last rating of Eskom was the operating performance of the company, particularly its inability to get the tariff increases that it needs to cover both operating expenses and the planned R385bn capital expenditure programme over the next five years.
Bobby Godsell highlighted two issues in his annual report that are critical to sorting out Eskom's financial problems and its ability to meet the long-term needs of a South African economy that has to grow faster than the 3.6 percent long-term average achieved since 1960. First, the company needs to charge tariffs that recover its economic costs of producing electricity. Secondly, it is not possible to fund Eskom's capital expansion on tariff increases alone.
What is important is decisive action by the government in dealing with these issues.
Tshepo Ntsimane
Roodepoort
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