Trade unions were initially set up to look after the interests of people who were lumped together into a trade. It has now grown to represent people who work in a common industry. Unions originally wanted to protect the workers rights amidst the mindset of shareholder return, thus unions grew and were effective in that.
Although there is still a place for employees, semi skilled and even unskilled labour to be represented by trade unions, both the workers and the leaders need to understand that we are no longer in the industrial age, but rather in a new age with new rules. The old rules simply don’t work anymore and trade unions aligned with the old mindset are, ironically, the biggest handbrake to job creation in this country.
Trade unions in South Africa developed not just in response to the continuous production lines / high volume output industries, but also to provide a political voice for a majority of the working population. It was an industrial age approach and fitting for the way in which business, manufacturing and our political life was done at the time. Yet if we fast forward to present day, it seems as though the trade union movement has not understood the shift from the industrial age through the information age into the connection / relationship age which sociologists call the world today.
This post information era is an age where things change very quickly, where the skills you need at any time are variable and thus the costs and workforce need to be equally variable and flexible. It is also an age where output and our deliveries are what count, rather than the hours spent attending work. Sadly our trade union movement is still firmly rooted in its founding ethos of industrial age thinking and belligerent approaches. The trade unions need to modernise on two fronts or face extinction.
The question is if trade unions can modernize on either?
On the work front I believe they can but it only if it starts with educating those they represent that the reality of globalisation. This means the following:
• Work will flow to places best equipped to perform that work most economically.
• If their productivity is not commensurate with their cost, work will simply move elsewhere
• The result will be job losses.
There are many people in the trade union movement who are skilled and have a high work ethic. These people need to take the lead and convince trade unions that growing their skills and adding more value at a more effective cost base is the only way they can ensure their jobs in a globalised world.
This is linked to the political front – if the unions continue to hold the country to ransom they render the ruling party less and less effective by the day, and will contribute to the declining competitiveness of our country, job loss and ultimately voter loss.
Not only is this to the detriment of all and but most significantly themselves.
