In the last Numsa News No 3 2006, shop steward Mlungisi Tikolo wrote a story on the role of black managers in Numsa organised industries. It sparked more debate through Numsa’s e-mail list and its offices. This is an edited version of some of the letters that were received.
Dear Numsa News For a long time workers and shop stewards have been grappling with the question of how do we manage the contradictions which arise as a result of Numsa members who are also managers participating or not participating in union activities. To get to the bottom of this we need to answer these questions:-
1. Should we allow them to attend our factory meetings? Given the fact that it is in these meetings where we plot and strategise against management that they are a part of, will their presence not amount to them spying on us? If we exclude them are we not denying them their right as members in good standing?2. Should we expect them to participate in strikes? Can they strike with us at plant level and also sit on the side of management when we resolve the strike in the boardrooms? They fall outside of the bargaining unit in our industries. Must they strike in solidarity with us during industry strikes? Section 77 strikes – Must they leave their managerial responsibilities and air conditioned offices behind and join us in the streets? 3. Are they worth having as members? Most of them if not all are not participating in any case. Do we need members whose only contribution is paying union subscription fees? If we deny them union membership, are we not violating their right to freedom of association?
I would like to hear views from comrades.
Douglas RafapaNUMSA Full Time Shop StewardBevcan Springs
Dear Numsa NewsIn response to the above-mentioned questions, I would like to respond with more questions:
What does Numsa policy say about the recruitment of white collar workers?
If we do not accept them in Numsa, are we not opening the floodgates for them to join rival unions?
If they join rival Unions, aren’t they going to conspire/connive with those rival unions against Numsa?
Abram Hlakudi, FFE Minerals
Dear Numsa NewsFirstly, let me concur with Hlakudi, if we are not open for democracy and being a progressive union then what do we stand for? We should acknowledge the fact that people/shopstewards are developing themselves for senior positions in any organisations. There is nothing wrong to have members as managers as long as they are just ordinary members and not shop stewards in terms of our constitution.
You cannot tell someone they cannot climb the ladder because to be a unionist is to fight those barriers that prevent us from becoming managers.
Abraham Tebeila, Kentron
Dear Numsa NewsIt is suicidal to have managers as members of the union. When they are employed as managers they sign a pledge or a code of conduct that the company relies on their trust and there are big incentives for that. Secondly, the fight between the employer and the employee is an endless struggle. It’s like a spider and a fly situation. They will never forgive each other because a spider depends on the fly’s blood using its web as a trap, just like any business depends on managers as corner pillars to prosper by making sure that the workers’ power is sucked and used until the last drop and eventually left to die.
Losi Phaphu – VWSA
Dear Numsa NewsIn terms of our constitution, chapter 2, section 3[j]: the consequences of termination of membership is by becoming an employer. Now, by becoming a manager, are you an employer? NO! An employer is someone who owns the means of production. A manager is someone employed by an employer to look after and control the means of production. A manager is still exposed to the same conditions as ordinary members, he/she can still be dismissed.So they need a union to defend them. They have a right to belong to the union.
Can they become shopstewards?Yes, if they don’t have powers to hire and fire. In other companies, management have a problem with managers becoming shopstewards; they argue that they will take sensitive information to the union. Of course we need this information from the managers so that we can be in a position to respond to their long term plans. If we deny managers the opportunity of becoming shopstewards, we deny ourselves this opportunity. I agree that some managers are worse than the employers themselves. But this cannot stop us from identifying good managers to take up positions as shopstewards in strategic companies like Eskom and Denel etc.
Philemon Shiburi, Numsa national treasurer, QD Electonics.
Dear Numsa NewsIs a manager a worker or an agent of the employer? Karl Marx said that the middle class occupied a space between the owners of the means of production and the proletariat and that they were permitted to enjoy their status because they were the oppressors of the proletariat and ensured the status of the aristocrats and owners.
This was perpetuated in the past in South Africa by apartheid legislation that separated the races, providing most whites with comfortable middle class or bourgeois lifestyles and this aided and abetted the oppression of the proletariat. What has changed? Apartheid laws are gone, but the owners of the means of production are content for blacks to join the middle class as managers, small time entrepreneurs and infuse them with the same values that existed in the past, ie that they too become the oppressors on behalf of the owners.
There are two difficulties with this proposition. Firstly, from a white perspective, friendly or sweetheart unions existed within large industries and the government sector that sought to raise the living standards of non-management whites to a level where they would not protest. Many of these unions have encouraged black membership with one major exception namely Solidarity, which despite being white is predominantly a workers’ union. It needs to change its exclusion rules and be brought into the fold of the majority unions. Those former white unions seek out black membership that is entering the supervisory ranks due to affirmative action and many will inevitably become managers.
Secondly, the former black unions, mainly within Cosatu have many members moving into those same supervisory and management ranks and increasingly those employees are seeing themselves as middle class, the majority will wish to remain with their original unions, but there are concerns that the blue collar workers either cannot deal with or do not know how to deal with their concerns. Owners [and managers] perceive this and will try to separate the unions’ functions between monthly paid and hourly paid employees, between members of the bargaining unit and non-members. Many shop stewards remain within worker ranks and have little inclination to support managers within their unions. They see workers moving into the middle class and consider many of the grievances of higher paid workers to be of little consequence. But the grievances are real, many corporations have agendas to reduce the payroll by introducing lower starting salaries and amending benefits.
Many managers today have had their ability to hire and fire curtailed because of LRA requirements. Increasingly these decisions are being made by directors or even the CEO. The managers themselves are increasingly being subjected to the same disciplinary headaches that torment workers, in many cases subjectively applied to prevent the advancement of a black candidate or alternatively to remove a highly paid white manager. Managers increasingly see a need for union membership and the unions need to address management membership but they must not create partitions within single unions.
Greg Stanley, Toyota
Dear Numsa News Is it right for a manager to join the union and be a part of the shop steward team? If we can assist in changing the necessary stumbling blocks [policies and procedure] I see no reason why not. We are the ones who can change these things; he/she may get to the top only to find that s/he alone cannot change the company behaviour. Let us give him something to work from and assist him where we can so that we do not cast our fellow comrades out just because they are progressing in life. Let us use them as we have trained them to change the way things are into the way things should be. Let us not sit back and accept that they have contracts that restrict them from working with and for the people, let us revisit such issues and work from there.
Celiwe Xulu, Bayside Aluminium, BHP Billiton
Dear Numsa NewsI have to say no, but as the constitution says if you become an employer you cannot be a member. Legally the manager is an employer thus there will always be a conflict of interests. I have no objections to the junior management positions such as supervisors, superintendents as long as they have always been part of the unions’ structures or members. They can be sympathetic to workers’ rights and understand the struggle we are in. We have seen however from experience of these people that once they are in those positions they become exactly like employers and only think of their bonuses at the expense of workers. We need to be cautious of that.
Siyabonga Gumede, Bayside Aluminium
Dear Numsa NewsWhen a shop steward becomes a manager s/he should vacate the shop steward position but maintain union membership. We cannot have one person occupying two incompatible positions simultaneously. In a situation where a worker has to attend a disciplinary enquiry, the manager who is a shop steward cannot represent the company and at the same time represent the worker.
L M Mochochoko