Special Hearings — Business Hearings — 1997-11-13

MR ANGUS: Okay.  Chairperson, a long question.  I don't know whether we can give a very long answer, but I'll certainly kick off and then ask my colleagues to contribute further.
 I think firstly on the question of the employers trying to take false credit for dismantling Apartheid, our comment would be to say, and COSATU's anger in that regard, certainly I'm not going to speak for any of the other employers, but certainly from Seefsa's point of view, we have our hope not ever given the impression of trying to claim that we were solely responsible or even that employers were solely responsible or even that Whites were solely responsible for dismantling Apartheid.
 Quite clearly the mass action of the 1980's, there's no question that sanctions - there's no question that all kinds of forces came into play during the - particular the period of the 1980's which ultimately lead to the collapse of the Apartheid system and we would certainly not want to claim that we were solely responsible for that.  That would be an absurd, a manifestly absurd claim for us to make.
 I certainly would not like to be the one who would try to weigh up, you know, the relative strengths of the different actions against Apartheid which finally brought about its downfall.
 But, you know, to be fair, we've been asked to talk about the role which we as an employer organisation have played and we've tried in our submissions and in the words that we've put to here today, to spell out what we believed the role that we played was.
 We've admitted, Mr Campbell, in his concluding remarks, has admitted, it was a limited role.  It was a role that we could have tried to expand.  We could have worked harder at trying to express that opposition on a broader and perhaps stronger and more virulent bases.
 It's to our discredit that we didn't do that, but certainly it would not be - it would not at all appropriate to claim that we were the only dismantlers or even the major causes for the dismantlement of Apartheid.
 As far as - as far as the question the sort of making the - making the White trade unions escape goats.  If I've given that impression it's a false impression and I would like to withdraw it.
 The point which I was trying to make was not in any sense that they held us back.  In fact, quite the contrary in many respects, in many respects the White trade unions displayed what we think for those days, was a fairly remarkable degree of understanding of what it was that we believed was necessary and a fairly high level of accommodation for what we believed to be necessary.
 Namely, the elimination of racial discrimination from our agreements on the one hand and secondly, the need to move Black people up from simple labouring tasks into the higher level grades.
 We worked together with them in that process.  The only point that I was trying to make was to say that it wasn't simply a matter for Seefsa to say we're going to go ahead and do that.  It was a matter which had to be negotiated and it was a matter which had to - which had to be done in a manner which won their support.
 I certainly would not like to in any way suggest that, you know, they were recalcitrant in that area as I said, they did in fact surprise - in many ways show a remarkable degree of understanding and agreement with us.
 I don't know whether that's covered everything.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes, perhaps I could just agree with everything that Mr Angus has said, but I would just like to say that it certainly wasn't the intention in our submission to try and take the credit for anything or to take away anything from the struggle from the trade unions.
 I certainly understand and sympathise and agree with COSATU's anger and we're certainly not trying to take credit for that.  I think all we were trying to say to you, we tried to put a submission in which was as factual as possible.  We took purely extracts of everything over the years that had any bearing, we thought, on the matter and the discussion and put it factually down whether it was favourable towards Seefsa or otherwise.
 In our summary I think we were merely trying to indicated where we felt we had contributed to it, but we're certainly not trying to take credit for everything.

MR ANGUS: Sorry, Chairperson, can I just comment on the rosy cartel bit, which - I'm sorry - I realised I missed.
 Yes, what you know, what was said in the question was absolutely true;  that the negotiations were between the employers in the industry or the employer members of Seefsa in the industry and what at that stage were essentially White trade unions.
 We did determine the terms and conditions of employment for the workers in the industry.  We've pointed out in our submission that we did the best we could.  Well, you know, maybe we didn't do the best we could, but we did what we think was quite a lot to try to get direct Black worker representation into those negotiations and ultimately, you know, we were successful in doing that.
 But during the period in question, when we were simply not allowed to involve Black worker representatives directly, I don't know what other alternatives we would have had.
 We had Black workers in the industry, large numbers of them.  We had to determine what their wages would be and we therefore, as I say, simply had to work within the confines of what was basically a very unfair and unjust system.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Angus, let me just take advantage of asking one quick question.
 We've heard a great deal over the last three days about training for Black workers, the question of Black management not being represented within structures of capital ...(tape ends)

MR ANGUS: ... to add very much to the debate on ownership, it's not a matter that Seefsa has directly become involved in.  The Anglo American representatives had some comments in that area.  I don't really know whether I can add meaningfully to that.  Mr Campbell may well be able to do so.
 As far as training is concerned, yes, what we're attempting to do in the metal and engineering industry is a general upliftment of skill levels, because, yes, it is important to have Black people in managerial positions.  Yes, it is important to have Black people in ownership positions in companies, but those are things over which we as an employer federation have a fairly limited influence and that is something that we would really look to our members as opposed to Seefsa as a federation to take a lead in.
 The area that we think we can and we have in the past made some meaningful progress in, is in the area of work force training.  In other words the general upliftment of skill levels in the work force and of course together with that, the general upliftment of wages and terms and conditions of employment.
 That's really what Mr Campbell was referring to in his concluding remarks in terms of the major initiative which we now have in place in the industry.  To develop an industry wide national qualifications framework system for workers, a system which will provide meaningful career paths for workers in the industry and which will provide them with meaningful training which will be, we hope, not only relevant in the companies in which they operate, but also will enable them to be more transferable, to give them portable skills which in the event of them leaving the particular organisation for whom they happen to be working, to give them portable skills which they can then use in a other organisations as well.
 It's a major initiative as Mr Campbell has said.  We're spending many many millions of rands on it.  It's an area where we've had a very major input and very major positive input from the trade unions in the industry.
 All of the trade unions in the industry and it's an area that we believe will make a major contribution to the industry and to workers in the future.