THE REAL WORLD CUP POST MORTEMS AWAIT

by Terry Bell

There will doubtless be many post mortems about the performance of Bafana Bafana in this World Cup and, in particular, the showing on Wednesday with its 3-0 defeat to Uruguay. But there will be other post mortems as well — and they may prove to be more important in the long run than any analysis of soccer prowess.

Take the case of the security guards and stewards who first went in strike in Durban and then Cape Town, with threats to Johannesburg. This resulted in the police drafting in 11 000 trainee officers.

Large scale disruption was avoided, but the incidents raise a number of important questions. Interviews with some of the now dismissed guards indicate that at least a number of them qualify as victims of what the unions call the “bakkie brigade”, those purveyors of temporary labour who usually pick up their workers at the side of the road.

It is this practice that triggered the call by Cosatu to ban all labour brokers, to insist on permanent and decent work for all. However, the very fact that the World Cup venues in at least three major centres required a large number of temporary staff reveals that part-time or — as in this case — very temporary work, is a reality that cannot, perhaps, be avoided.

“But I am shocked at what has been going on,” says Evan Abrahamse, a SA Transport and Allied Workers’ Union organiser in the Western Cape. He has collected reports from workers who spent up to 16 hours on duty at the Cape Town stadium before being paid R190 at 2am. “And then there was no transport for them to get back home to Khayalitsha,” he says.

The unions will, presumably, investigate such treatment and take issue about it. But there are other aspects as well, especially regarding the company contracted to provide the guards and stewards — and the nature of the financial rewards offered. The company is Stallion Security, a large, national group that prides itself on its black empowerment status.

It lists as one of its affiliates, Amabubesi Investments that was headed until 2006 by former National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) head, Bulelani Ngcuka before he left to chair Vuwa Investments where his former NPA communications chief, Sipho Ngwema, is also an executive director. Who owns what, when contracts were signed and what — if any — strings were pulled, should also form part of a future post mortem.

This will also almost certainly feature in the raging debates about temporary work and how it should be controlled, if, indeed, it can be. It should also throw into sharp focus the existing legislation and the fact that it is frequently observed in the breach, with little evidence of enforcement.

The temporary work issue is also central to the strikes underway at retailers DisChem and Game and at Premier Foods subsidiary, Bokomo.

Queries about these will bring up the whole issue of the government as employer, especially because of the disputes involving Eskom and the public service. In the case of the public service, the labour movement may also have to examine and deal with the strong undercurrent of inter-union feuding that has erupted.

The Cosatu-affiliated SA Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) has accused the independent, 210 000-strong Public Servants Association (PSA) of using the wage negotiations process to “gain cheap political points”. According to Sadtu, the PSA — it declared a dispute on May 24, so allowing for a strike by its members from June 24 — “expelled itself” from the process by declaring a dispute. The other unions only declared a dispute on June 10.

What this boils down to is that the PSA may legally strike during the World Cup; the others only after the event. That, as the PSA sees it, is not the point. “We will decide when and how to go on strike if we have to,” says PSA deputy general manager Manie de Clerq.

PSA negotiator Leon Gilbert stresses that the union does not wish to disrupt the soccer spectacular. “But we couldn’t delay a dispute just because of that,” he says. He also points out that, in any event, the PSA and government will go into conciliation talks today (subs: Friday) and the dispute may be resolved.

However, the rows about the timing of the dispute have resulted in accusations directed at the leaderships of Cosatu affiliates. They are accused — and not only from within the independent unions — of a tendency, as members of the governing alliance, to “go soft” on government, in this case ensuring that there would be no disruption during the World Cup.

De Clerq admits that there has been ongoing tension between the PSA and the Cosatu unions in the public sector ever since the PSA refused, three years ago, to sign the controversial occupational special dispensation (OSD) agreement tabled by the government. Because the Cosatu unions held a majority in the bargaining council, the OSD deal applied to all unions.

“But the employer never said where the money was coming from and, as it has turned out, there is none,” says De Clerq. There are now disputes over overtime provisions included in the deal and over non-payment of OSD, especially in correctional services.

This has renewed arguments about the relationship of trade unions to government. However, there are plenty of examples of the Cosatu unions, especially of late, taking a hard line with government.

The National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu), for example, this week led a broader union demand for a formal investigation into reports that government departments had spent R10.9 million on World Cup tickets for “top managers and VIP investors”. This was in contravention of a call by finance minister Pravin Gordhan for “prudence in spending taxpayers’ money”.

The union maintains that the ticket purchases amounted to “selfish misappropriation of public funds by these shameless bureaucratic fat cats”. And Nehawu media officer, Sizwe Pampla has issued a call for harsh action “to prevent this government turning into a kleptocracy”.

* Bell was the founding principal of the Somafco primary division. He was in exile from 1965 and banned from 1966 to February 1990.