THE STATE OF THE FEDERATION ADDRESS 19th January 2015 FEDUSA President Koos Bezuidenhout Honourable Deputy President of the Republic of South Africa, HE Mr Cyril Ramaphosa FEDUSA Deputy President, Mr Godfrey Selematsela FEDUSA Vice Presidents Ashley Benjamin; Chris Klopper; Martle Keyter; Eddie de Klerk and Dorothy Ndlovu Honourable Affiliate Presidents and General Secretaries FEDUSA General Secretary Comrades and Colleagues, Friends Our Federation is turning 18 years old this year. In real and human terms it has therefore become old enough to make its own decisions, without the legal requirement to have a legal guardian. As we have achieved the proverbial licence to determine our own fate and future, allow me a moment to thank you for making time in your very busy schedules to attend this first “High Level Leadership Indaba”, the first one in our 18 years of existence! This Indaba will give us as leaders an opportunity to reflect on our strengths and weaknesses and to jointly develop new innovative approaches to build a more resilient FEDUSA. Our engagements over the next two days could inspire us to construct an united, democratic and gender sensitive organisation, who is capable to lead members and workers in our country. My address will focus on the internal dimensions of FEDUSA over which we have complete control and to touch on the external environment to which we have limited control but could use influence to change matters. We must listen and engage honestly with another and it is imperative to develop a resilient path for FEDUSA to grow. In addition, after the National Office Bearers were elected at the 2011 National Congress, the National Executive Committee approved a proposal to implement the “Presidential Affiliates Visit Programme”, to ensure that the leadership of FEDUSA understood what the expectations and subsequent needs of our Affiliates are. This innovation and new project gave our General Secretary and me the opportunity to meet with you individually. During these sessions, you have articulated your requirements very clearly and these indicators were incorporated in our programme of action. I would like to briefly outline the challenges of the external environment, where we operate, engage and function with government, business and organised labour. The Human Science Research Council survey indicates that among the general South African population, trust in the trade union movement, among union target membership, fell significantly after last year’s labour unrest. The decline of trust prompted some trade unions to review their member services concerning basic workplace issues, internal structures between trade union members and their leaders, as well as processes to promote corruption-free organisations. Labour unrest in South Africa has markedly increased during 2014 and the violent nature of the industrial action has significantly affected output in the mining, automotive and agricultural sectors. The slow pace of economic growth also continued to constraint development in the country. Low investment, lack of confidence and on-going efforts to reduce household debt have held back inclusive economic growth further, with GDP reaching 1.9% in 2013 compared with 2.5% in 2012. Unemployment and poor labour relations continue to pose serious challenges for the country. Unemployment remains high at 24.1% overall, and 64.8% for young people between the ages of 15 and 24. Not even, the governments newly launched employment tax incentive could address this challenge where the private sector is encouraged to employ more young people by subsidising the salaries of newly recruited workers aged between 18 and 29. Furthermore, output potential is constrained by a skills shortage, and calls are being made for further investment and reform of the poorly performing education system. South Africa’s vastly unequal distribution of income perpetuates enormous differences in living standards among households, which divides our society and blight our future. By international standards, our levels of inequality are extra-ordinary high and have in fact increased since the end of apartheid. The OECD study shows an increase of inequality in South Africa, even if measured against high-scoring countries like Chile, Mexico, Turkey; no one come near to South Africa’s shamefully high Gini coefficient of 0.7. In general, there are a perception that leadership in government, business and labour have failed to address the triple challenge of poverty, inequality and unemployment in South Africa as an emerging economy. The OECD argues that potential economic growth should be boosted by structural reforms that addresses the insider/outsider divide in the labour market and non-competitive product markets, securing faster job creation and more rapid responses to sector- specific supply constraints. Furthermore, it is contended that a less confrontational labour market relationship would support investor confidence, boosting investments, employment and integration into global supply chains. The current remuneration practices are one of many interlinked problems contributing to the trenchant inequality. The PE Corporate Services research shows that South African executives are generously remunerated in comparison with their global peers. South Africa was only second after the United States of America in 2012. The common response from South African business – has always been that executives must be paid internationally comparable salaries or they will leave. We think that this is a hollow threat and its veracity should be tested. The FEDUSA leadership will table these issues at the Labour Nedlac School that will be held next week to ensure that the external issues are dealt with through NEDLAC and Millennium Labour Council. We are also concerned about the lack of ethical leadership amongst the social partners and the lack of commitment to long term sustainable development to secure a better future for us all. Reflecting on the internal dimensions of FEDUSA, it is also critical for us to interrogate the situation concerning trust internally as a Federation, because to be honest, we come from a history of distrust, oppression, division and apartheid. FEDUSA today is recognised internationally and local as one of the organisations who have managed to unite black, white, coloured and Indians workers and the Federation also crossed the religious divide. Our founder leaders, of whom I was, as a young representative at the time also privileged to be one, were deeply committed to the formation of a Federation, fostered and principled on true independence and politically non-alignment to any of the political parties. This approach was developed from the ILO Convention of social dialogue and social partnerships between government, business and labour. Many trade unions across the world and, specifically in Africa, have learnt serious lessons in this regard that non-alignment is sacrosanct and not negotiable. Trust is necessary to strengthen credibility and empowerment of any organisation, economy or human relationship to nurture inclusive democracy, service delivery and inclusive economic growth. People, who work together in an atmosphere of trust, can collaborate productively, so things get done faster and at a lower cost. However, without trust organisations slow down and costs rise. When trust is absent, people keep trying to protect themselves against those whom they cannot trust. They insist on getting everything in writing because they cannot believe what people say and they engage in other steps whose only function is to compensate for the lack of trust. We also believe that character and competence inspire trust. Character includes integrity, motivation and the right attitude. Credibility is the foundation of self-trust. For others to believe in you, you must be able to believe in yourself. Little things matter, little breaches of trust compound over time. When people break their commitments to themselves or others, they create distrust. It is therefore imperative for us as leaders of FEDUSA to strengthen your personal credibility based on integrity, intent, capabilities and results. Relationship trust is also important for all leaders whether in labour, government or business. Relationship trust is built on the foundations of respect, transparency, loyalty, results driven and clarification of expectations. Likewise, high organisational trust grows faster when leaders share information, tolerate mistakes, demonstrate loyalty and innovate. In low-trust organisations people may be typically face destructive politics and red tape. FEDUSA has the potential to develop into a high-trust organisation and could reap the benefits of value growth, innovation, collaboration, partnering, smooth execution and high loyalty. An Affiliate can also become a high-trust organisation that grows and develop authentic relationship of trust with employers. This approach is imperative to deal with the poor labour relations challenge. Poor labour relations are the main ingredients of low-trust relationships and both trade unions and employers should work together to foster high-trust. Trust is not a constant - we as leaders should built it through practice and it can be repaired, when it is broken. In fact, broken trust can present a real challenge that could lead to an even stronger level of renewed distrust or vice versa. It is also imperative for us to review our performance in terms of growing our organisations and how to bring new independent trade unions into the family of FEDUSA to strengthen the alternative independent voice of labour. Many large independent trade unions operate in our labour market and do not see the need to be affiliated with FEDUSA. Our attempts in the past did not rendered positive outcomes. We would like to propose that we start a new approach through a round table open discussion with these unaffiliated trade unions. The FEDUSA Management Committee should lead this process and invite the PSA, IMATU, SAPU, Solidarity, NAPTOSA and NATU to participate in these open discussions. Informal approaches were already made to these trade unions and there seems to be, in some cases, an appetite for such a proposal. When FEDUSA was formed on 1st April 1997 by merging FEDSAL and FORCE into one national representative body, our membership base was more than 500 000 paid up members. However, over the years a few Affiliates disaffiliated for various reasons. We reflected deeply on this phenomenon and discovered that most of these disaffiliations occurred shortly after the National Congress and, unfortunately, stemmed from the lobbying and election processes as a primary cause. Other secondary causes included differences of opinion on policy positions on economic and labour market issues. Importantly however, is that we need to learn lessons how to avoid these disaffiliations. Succession planning is a process for identifying and developing internal people, who has the potential to fill key leadership positions in an organisation. FEDUSA need to have some form of succession planning, after all, no one lives forever, or heads an organisation forever. Succession planning is a must because we all know that the next National Congress will be in November 2016. Subsequently, it is absolutely essential for us as leaders to plan now in order to meeting the future talent needs of FEDUSA or we will face disruption when key leaders retire or leave. With this matter being highlighted, I want to reiterate that I am very grateful and humble that my own union has given me the freedom and opportunity to serve at the national level insofar as being elected as President. Also the mere fact to be entrusted with the position of President is no simple task, albeit several individuals will differ on this point, as you are responsible and accountable to the leadership of all the affiliates and not just your own! Subsequently, in order to give us ample and enough time to reform and find the appropriate leaders of tomorrow, I am, God willing, giving notice early in 2015 that I will not be available for any position after the 2016 FEDUSA 6th CONGRESS to be held in November 2016, as I have to focus on my own employer’s union’s future and my own career, as it is inevitably time to consider new blood to lead both the Federation and my employer’s union after more than 25 years working as a servant of the members. To this end, however, I am very excited to be still, God willing, available to hopefully assist in grooming the new Presidential candidates for their future role and responsibilities post 2016 Congress. In order to achieve this, it should entail that we follow a proven, step-by-step approach to ensure that the competent and able leaders are identified with the appropriate competencies and values. The identified talent should be developed and retained, but care should also be taken to preserve FEDUSA’s intellectual capital. It is better to anticipate and not to just react to changes in the increasingly variable operational and leadership environment. It is important to realise and accept that the Federation has a leadership- and equity-shortage, specifically at provincial level and, doing nothing about this serious shortcoming, is not a realistic option. This challenge could be turned into an opportunity to strengthen of grassroots and community participation because our PECs is ideally positioned to engagement with provincial, local government structures and business chambers to foster local economic development. Evidence however shows, organisations that lack good leadership on local, or national level, do not last long. FEDUSA needs to grow its own future leaders through on-the-job training and skills development and also hopefully through its own “FEDUSA Training & Education Academy”. It is important to recognise that leadership development takes sustained effort over time, hard work and resources. It is therefore essential to tailor such skills development plans according to the grassroots needs of the Federation, while at the same time allow for individual growth. Along this line of thinking we should approach Ditsela, through their strategic partnership with UNISA, to assist us in this regard. Leadership is getting more complex and demanding. Leaders must have a global perspective, be visionary, yet collaborative, aware of details, yet able to see the big picture, and capable of more than mere management. Future challenges will probably be different, and will demand a changed style of leadership. Impatience, failure to let people learn from mistakes or selecting future leaders that mirror our own skills, personality and background could be fatal to the Federation. The Federation should identify and cultivate these future leaders through our provincial structures under the guidance of the National Executive Committee. Overall, it is important for each FEDUSA Affiliate to have a proper recruitment plan and implementation strategy to support the objective of membership growth. On an affiliate level, we have also witnessed successful integration of smaller trade unions with our Affiliates such as UNTU, who incorporated SARWU into the UTATU stable, and my own organisation UASA. These approaches support membership growth, while it is not easy. In this regard, I would like to recommend thorough leadership, and an approach of thinking outside of the box. In conclusion, we trust that this High Level Leadership Indaba will assist FEDUSA to grow from strength to strength and that each of you will make a critical contribution to build our beloved Federation. This is work in progress and we look forward to learn from you. May God bless FEDUSA and we pray that we be given leadership insight and wisdom to take this incredible organisation forward to make a difference in the lives of our members and their families. Hence the slogan for the Indaba: “Decent work and a decent life for all”. Finally, never give up and remember that YOU ARE FEDUSA! I thank you. JPL (Koos) Bezuidenhout FEDUSA PRESIDENT (2011 - 2016)
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 07:50:17 +0000
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