The fact that the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) was bypassed when business and the government agreed last week to set up crisis committees on energy, logistics and crime is not an indication of its irrelevance, says Nedlac executive director Lisa Seftel.
“Government tackles crises. You can't transfer the risks of a weak government onto the social partner collective.”
Further questions about Nedlac's relevance were raised last week when Seftel said the council was not involved in President Cyril Ramaphosa's proposed social compact between the government, business, labour and community partners.
In his state of the nation address in 2022, Ramaphosa announced that social partners would hammer out a comprehensive social compact within 100 days to deal with economic growth and the unemployment crisis, but nothing has come of it.
Seftel denies this is another indication that Nedlac is irrelevant and not fit for purpose.
“The original purpose of Nedlac was not social compacting,” she says. “Its role is to impact on policy and legislation, to ensure social partners can comment on important socioeconomic policies and bills. It facilitates intensive engagement and discussion. When there are crises in the country, the social partners come to Nedlac to attempt to reach agreement.”
She says the acceptance by Ramaphosa and Business Unity South Africa (Busa) that given the severity of the crises facing the country “bilateral action-orientated” agreements between the private sector and the government are the only way to go does not invalidate Nedlac's role.
Aren't they in effect saying that in situations of dire emergency, Nedlac is not fit for purpose?
“One of the things the social partners have learnt, especially during Covid, is the need for agility and responsiveness.”
This has been provided by the enabling role of Nedlac, she says.
What about the need, articulated repeatedly by economists and business people, for South Africa's labour relations to be reformed to make it easier, especially for small enterprises, to do business?
“There is an ongoing discussion in Nedlac about labour law reform, including that there should be exemptions for small business, which the department of employment & labour has put on the table,” says Seftel, who, after cutting her teeth as an organiser at Cosatu, joined the department and contributed to some of the labour law Nedlac is taking so long to reform.
“It's a debate, an engagement. Social partners have different views about how best to reform labour laws to facilitate economic growth.”
Isn't Nedlac's failure to accelerate this process — given the crisis of almost zero economic growth and a 42.4% unemployment rate, one of the highest in the world — another example of its irrelevance in the face of South Africa's existential problems?
She rejects this view, but concedes Nedlac does not have “any tools to push social partners who can't agree and are slower than anticipated”.
“We can't bulldoze them to do something that they don't want to do.”
But the Nedlac process is “robust and informed”, she says.
The reason progress has been glacial is due to factors which Nedlac and the social partners can hardly control. The energy crisis has got nothing to do with Nedlac or the social partners, it's got to do with the state.
— Lisa Seftel, Nedlac executive director
“There's capacity-building to enable them to make good decisions, and that's what you need. Robust, informed policy-making. Not that we push people to make uninformed policy decisions.”
Seftel denies that the Nedlac process often results in policy confusion and contradiction.
“I’m not seeing any policy confusion. I’m seeing that there are policy differences which have gone on for a long time." This can’t be laid at Nedlac’s door, she says.
“What happens between different ministers and levels of government is not something Nedlac can get involved in. That's a weakness of government, not of Nedlac.”
Small businesses say Nedlac is irrelevant to them. They don't have direct representation and urgent issues constraining them, such as collective bargaining, are not being dealt with.
Citing International Monetary Fund studies, among others, Seftel says the biggest constraints to small business are power, transport, service delivery by local government and crime. Not Nedlac.
“Within Nedlac we have a workstream which over two years has looked at ways in which policy can shift and actions can happen so small business is less constrained by these issues.”
Though Seftel says Nedlac's original purpose was not to facilitate social compacts, it concluded such a compact between the government, business, labour and community partners in 2020, which undertook to implement interventions to turn around Eskom as a matter of urgency. These included dealing with corruption and municipal debt.
She says it would be “bizarre” to argue that the worsening of the energy crisis since then reflects badly on Nedlac.
“Most of the issues raised in that social compact have happened,” she says, including additional private sector generation and progress on the unbundling and restructuring of Eskom.
“The reason progress has been glacial is due to factors which Nedlac and the social partners can hardly control. The energy crisis has got nothing to do with Nedlac or the social partners, it's got to do with the state.”
It's because things are moving so slowly that Busa, which represents business at Nedlac, “approached the president with an offer to help”, Seftel says. “It's an acknowledgment that if business doesn't help at an operational level, the crisis is not going to be solved.”
Isn't it an acknowledgment that when action, as opposed to talk, is required, Nedlac is irrelevant?
“Government is required to govern. Nobody else is required to govern. Not Nedlac, not business, not labour, not community. What Nedlac does is enrich government.”
Basically, a glorified talk shop?
“It's not about talking, it's about inputting into government policies to enrich them, to make them more implementable.”
Action needs to come from the government, not from Nedlac or the social partners, she says.
“The job of labour is to protect workers' rights, the job of business is to deliver goods and services and make a profit. It's not their job to solve the problems of the country.”
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