The decent and the indecent: work and poverty in contemporary South Africa

1. The decent and the indecent: work and poverty in contemporary South Africa David Fig davidfig@iafrica.com BDS Network Copenhagen, 18 September 2009

2. South Africa’s double transition • 1994 saw the beginnings of democracy, but simultaneously the application of neo-liberal economic policies • This meant a shrinking of the state, deregulation, self-applied structural adjustment • Many firms applied stringent policies of outsourcing of labour leading to sub-contracting, casualisation, home work • Mining, agriculture, timber plantations, SASOL, steel manufacture, clothing, even universities

3. Formal work • Most formal employment was given more protection after 1994 • Unions had emerged as allies of government • Creation of a single labour market into which all would be drawn: the Basic Conditions of Employment Act 1995 • Measures to ensure BEE and EE, including ‘charters’ in key sectors

4. 70s: labour market analysts in developing countries (Hart 1973, ILO Kenya mission 1975) started to look again at urban unemployment It seemed instead that many people regarded as un- or underemployed were using a myriad of economic survival strategies When aggregated, these made a significant if undocumented contribution to the economy Rise of the informal sector

5. Sources: Hart 1973, ILO 1975

6. Views of the informal sector • Modernisation theory held that the informal sector was separate from the formal sector, constituting a reserve pool of surplus labour, or self-employed survivalists seeking to avoid registration and taxation. Work is often illegal, undocumented, unmeasured, dysfunctional to capitalist progress and falls outside economic information gathering systems.

7. Neo-Marxian modes of production theory (Wolpe 1975 et alia) held that in South Africa mines and farms underpaid workers because they claimed that their economic reproductive needs were managed by their having rural smallholdings. This entrenched migration. Both ends of the migration cycle were thus important in sustaining the apartheid economy.

8. Rethinking the informal sector The informal economy has more recently been seen as permanent and diverse, often providing services to the formal economy. Entrepreneurs would like less red tape, workers more employment protection. Some businesses are stable and dynamic and not merely survivalist. It should be measured, as it makes an important contribution to the economy.

9. Boundaries between the formal and the informal • Until recently, the formal sector denoted those in protected/decent employment and informal those outside in more precarious livelihoods • With the onset of neo-liberal policies and the shift to ‘flexible’ labour, thousands more people in the formal sector have lost their protected status

10. Dimensions of in/formalitySource: Devey, Skinner and Valodia, 2006:161

11. Patterns include: • Mass dismissal of labour from core business, and rehiring labour from brokers at a fraction of the cost. Workers lose union protection, wage levels drop drastically, benefits are lost, work is more seasonal or linked to demand in the production cycle

12. On the commercial farms • Mass dismissal of 900 000 farm workers on the eve of the proclamation of the ESTA (Extension of Security of Tenure Act 62 of 1997) • Some ‘fair trade’ interventions amongst the wine and fruit farm workers in W Cape • Rise in minimum wages for farm and domestic workers, but still great poverty

13. On communal lands • Outgrowing of timber or sugar • Small farmers become semi-proletarianised, subject to business cycle of the monopoly firms, reliant on them for seed, other inputs, harvesting (sub-contracted to brokers), payment • Sugar industry makes BEE claims • Monsanto and Massive Food Production Programme in the E Cape

14. In the mines

15. Impact of BEE • Outsourcing of particular functions in the name of BEE, e.g., owner-drivers in the beverage industry • BEE labour broking firms amongst the harshest, esp in mining – in attempt to beat the competition

16. Addressing the decent work deficit • Increased regulation through disruption by DoL of the value chains where work is indecent (Webster et al.) • Outlawing of labour broking (cf Namibia) where only for sub-contracting purposes (unions, parliamentary hearings) • Training opportunities for the un- and under-employed as well as the formally employed (SETAs) • Work experience: Extended Public Works Programme, Community Work Programme, Working for Water/Fire/Wetlands/Woodlands • Organising the informal workers, e.g., Streetnet • Extending the safety net (NHI, BIG, free basic electricity, schooling and water to poor families)

17. Security in the workplaceStanding (1997:8-9) • • Labour market security: employment opportunities in the sector; • • Employment security: protection against arbitrary dismissals; • • Job security: opportunities to build a career and increase income; • • Work security: protection against accidents and illness at work, and limits • to working time; • • Skills reproduction security: opportunities to gain and retain skills; • • Representation security: protection of collective voice in the labour • market through independent unions and employers’ associations; • • Income security: regular minimum income and comprehensive non-wage • benefits.

18. Is the decent work deficit a structural necessity for capital, or something that needs to be overcome? • Who will champion the fight for decent jobs? Unions/organised informal sector/other stakeholders? • Can the crisis be used creatively to place decent jobs on the agenda more squarely? • Why are CSR professionals not talking about decent jobs? (Fig’s “Amnesia” 2005)