Bargaining monitor
- Authors: Labour Research Services
- Date: Aug 2002
- Subjects: Labour Research Services
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/139634 , vital:37760
- Description: Over the past few months, the Namibian labour movement - particularly the country’s largest trade union federation, the National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW) - has been the subject of debate and media attention. Contradictory statements by union leaders, the NUNW’s position on the elections in Zimbabwe and the federation’s role in the privatisation of Air Namibia have raised serious questions about the vision and mission of Namibian trade unions. This article hopes to shed some light on recent developments against the background of the ongoing challenges facing the labour movement since independence.
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- Date Issued: Aug 2002
Taking employment equity forward at the workplace
- Authors: Labour Research Services
- Date: Oct 2002
- Subjects: Labour Research Services
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/139431 , vital:37737
- Description: In 1998 the South African Parliament passed the Employment Equity Act. This law seeks to help establish equity in the workplace. It prohibits unfair discrimination in employment and requires employers to practice affirmative action. Employers who are designated by the Act must promote the employment of blacks, women, and disabled people in order to correct the discrimination of apartheid employment practices. The idea of producing an education booklet on Taking Employment Equity Forward at the Workplace came out of a series of workshops that were run in Gauteng, Kwazulu-Natal, and the Western Cape in September and October 2000. The workshop programme was designed by the Labour Research Service and run together with Khanya College and the Workers’ College (Kwazulu-Natal). Affiliates of the trade union federations COSATU, NACTU, and FEDUSA were represented at the workshops, as were some unaffiliated trade unions. Of the 70 participants, 80% were shop-stewards and 26% were women. The main task of the workshops was to help participants gain some understanding of the Employment Equity Act so that they could help their trade unions to develop policies and practices around this legislation. This also meant that the workshops needed to explore workers’ experiences of discrimination in the workplace and the broader legacy of inequality left by apartheid capitalism. Experiences of affirmative action practices in other countries were also discussed in the workshops.
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- Date Issued: Oct 2002
Questions on wage policy
- Authors: Labour Research Services
- Date: Mar 1990
- Subjects: Labour Research Services
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/139460 , vital:37740
- Description: The question here is: should skill and training be rewarded with higher wages? If the answer is yes, how much extra should a worker get if he moves from a lower-skilled job to a higher- skilled job? How can divisions between workers be avoided? If the answer is no, how will the union be able to prevent employers from paying higher wages to skilled workers who are in short supply? Let us take the grade continuum as running from unskilled labourer to artisan. How many grades should there be in between? If there are many grades, confusion is likely as it will be difficult to tell the difference between one job and another. If there are too few grades, low-skilled workers will never move out of the bottom grade. In the iron and steel industrial agreement, there are twelve grades. In the clothing industry in Cape Town, twenty five different jobs are listed. Under the Paterson grading system, there are only nine grades between labourer and artisan. NUMSA has demanded that the number of grades in the auto industry be reduced from as many as eleven to only five.
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- Date Issued: Mar 1990