Automotive
companies restructuring globally are studying the deal that Goodyear has struck
with its workers in South Africa for guidelines.
This includes special provisions under a “Social Plan” which has
turned what threatened to be a confrontation with serious international implications
into a settlement that the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA)
is enthusiastically touting as a labour victory against the negative aspects
of globalisation.
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The deal comes as the unions in South Africa and several other emerging markets
undertake intensive studies of the implications of globalisation.
Goodyear had to slash about 400 jobs at its Port Elizabeth tyre plant as part
of the company’s global restructuring programme. The union reacted by calling
a strike and threatening to escalate the affair by seeking support from the
international labour movement.
Now, after months of intensive negotiations, its member are rushing to pick
up a severance package which includes a R4 million ($US499,000) social plan
to benefit the local economy by funding worker retraining and getting them into
Black empowerment projects and their own small business ventures.
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“The pact will empower workers directly to be involved in the economy,” says
NUMSA spokesman Dumiosa Ntuli.
Goodyear and the union first entered into negotiations last November, after
the tyre company announced a 10 percent cut in its global workforce. Goodyear
has just announced a first-quarter net loss of $US46.7 million from a profit
of $US48.2 million a year ago because of a decline in orders and charges covering
about 7,800 job cuts around the world.
Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima
Vavi says that “globalisation has initiated changes such as the increasing
use of technology to replace workers and the outsourcing of non-core functions
which have had a profound change on the conduct of collective bargaining and
labour organising”.
Cosatu is responding by establishing super unions, organising informal sector
workers and building up international affiliations to counter the effects of
globalisation on the workforce.
This strategy will be reflected in NUMSA’s upcoming collective bargaining
tactics for the 2001 wage negotiations with South African motor industry employers.
The government is encouraging NUMSA to get commitments from employers that
the big companies will buy from smaller companies that are established by retrenched
workers under programmes such as that agreed with Goodyear. Automotive worker
bargaining strategies in South Africa are also increasingly focusing on training
and re-training, particularly improving computer skills.
Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin has told NUMSA that it should work with
government to help establish small, medium and micro enterprises as a strategy
to counter retrenchments, as well as press to develop the skills that the integration
of the South African motor industry into global sourcing increasingly will demand.
He warned NUMSA about the damage that the illegal strike at Volkswagen SA’s
Uitenhage plant last year did to South Africa’s attempt to attract foreign
automotive investment. The strike led to the dismissal of 1,300 workers and
VW threatening to stop using the country as a global source for Golfs.
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