Celebrating a Decade of Service to Workers Education

1. www.ditsela.org.za Celebrating a Decade of Service to Workers Education Presentation to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Labour 1 September 2006 Gino Govender Executive Director

2. Presentation Headlines • Part One • Origins of DITSELA • Our Structure • Strategic Objectives of Ditsela • How we work • Programme Overview • Part Two • Achievements • Ten key Challenges MP’s must embrace • Conclusions

3. Ditsela’s Origins • Product of a labour strategy in the 90’s to build a national integrated trade union education and training system (NIETS) • Create an institute outside of formal union bureaucracy that: “strives to be a responsive, innovative and democratic learning organisation with a clear working class bias that contributes to building a strong trade union movement” (the Ditsela Vision) • Seek recognition by the new democratic state for trade unions as providers of workers’ education and the contribution it makes in: • strengthening worker participation to promote political, industrial and workplace democracy • Strengthening workers intellectual and organising capacity • building and maintaining a strong, vibrant labour movement in SA • promoting the importance of workers education • Publicly launched on 29th November 1996

4. Governance Structure • Registered as not for profit Section 21 association with Articles and a Memorandum of Association; • National Governing Board of Directors formally appointed by the Executive Committees of Cosatu and Fedusa (member federations); • Additional Directors appointed by virtue of specialist knowledge • Guided by the relevant principles of the PFM Act and the King Report on good governance as a work-in-progress • Staff of 18 in Johannesburg & 2 in Cape Town and work with external contracted facilitators with knowledge of the labour movement; • Ditsela Western Cape is housed at UWC and is managed by an Advisory Committee comprising members from Cosatu, Fedusa and Nactu and unaffiliated unions

5. Funding

6. DITSELA’s Core “business” • To be a worker education centre that offers dynamic, vibrant, critical and inspiring education that engages the challenges facing working people; • To deliver comprehensive and responsive programmes that are at the “cutting edge” in trade union education; • To support in developing organisational capacity for federations and unions to deliver their own education provision; • To maintain an open space for critical reflection and engagement within our programmes; • To promote a culture of democratic debate and respect for workers across union lines; • To encourage through practice a plough back of learning and reinforce collective learning; • To engage in a dynamic approach to assessing the needs of our constituency regularly. Our understanding of Building Organisational Capacity?…………………. “A continuous process by which members, leadership and staff develop abilities (individually and collectively) to perform functions, solve problems and set and achieve objectives”

7. Ditsela’s Model of Education Provision NEEDS ANALYSIS MONITORING & EVALUATION DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT IMPLEMENTATION DELIVERY A learning organisation as part of building a workers’ education movement…..what adult education theorists call the social mobilisation model

8. Planning for 2006 and beyond • An integrated planning process involving Cosatu, FEDUSA, the Department of Labour and Ditsela’s Governing Structure; • Final Draft Programme adopted by the Ditsela Board on 4 November; • Three-Year Project Proposal submitted to DoL; • Approximately 3500 direct beneficiaries of the 2006 programme • Poised for growth and expanded programme delivery at national and provincial level; • Will undertake organisational review on the eve of our 10th Anniversary and reposition the organisation for the coming decade’ • Currently planning for 2007 and beyond

9. National Programme Communication School • Report writing • Handling the Media • Creative & Effective Writing Administrator Development School • Intro to trade unions • Intro to Labour Law Organisational Dev and Management School • Financial Management • Project Design & Management • OD Theory and Practice New New Information and Communication Technology Courses integrated in every school DANLEP certified with Wits and UCT (5 Teaching Blocks) • Advanced Labour Law • Advanced Women Leadership • Advanced Organisers • Advanced Educators • Leading and Managing TU’s • Annual Graduation Ceremony New Health and Safety New

10. Provincial Programme Western Cape Modular Programme Intro to Political Economy Writing Skills Dismissals and Grievances Leadership Foundation Workplace Re-organisation Women’s Leadership Arbitration Skills Using E-mail and Internet HIV/AIDS in the Workplace Educator Skills WC Comp Courses • Political Economy • Labour Law • Workplace Re-org Provincial Schools Limpopo & N West • Dismissals & Disputes • Work Re-organisation • Intro to Political Economy • Negotiations Skills • Introduction to Computers Special Project • Tackling Racism in • the workplace New 2 WC Rural Schools Provincial Educator Development • Mpumalanga • Eastern Cape

11. Support Programme To provide needs-based dedicated and innovative support work and projects for trade unions Cosatu Projects Shop Stewards Train the Trainer Leadership Development Office Bearers Development Funding Workshop Organiser Development Administrator Development Fedusa Projects Media training Strategic Bargaining How to Use the CCMA Policy Development – linked to merger Sexual Harassment Shop Stewards Train the Trainer

12. Specialised Tailor-made Support • Needs Assessment of new Stewards in the security industry • Strategic Education Plans for the Communication Workers Union • Policy development and Leadership Training for the SADNU • Facilitators Skills for NUMSA • Developing a programme to organise farmworkers • Leadership Development for NATU • Developing an education strategy for the newly-formed Creative Workers Union of SA • Roll-out of shop stewards facilitator programmes and materials for Fedusa and Cosatu • Facilitation and support for the Inter-Federation Conference on Trade Union Qualification

13. Ditsela Networks – forums for sharing ideas and experiences • Educators • Organisational Development • Legal Officers • Health and Safety Officers New New

14. Information, Research and Development • Production in the Siyakhana Booklet Series – “Organising Successful Meetings” ; • Evaluation of the Mpumalanga Provincial Educators Pilot Project and drawing on the lessons for further shop steward education activists; • Cosatu Education Review and Educator Needs Survey; • Conducting an analysis of workers education needs in rural Western Cape in order for Ditsela to develop an appropriate holistic delivery strategy beyond just a “parachute in” approach; • Identifying training needs for our Provincial Schools’ • DANLEP Graduates’ Tracer Study – Where are they now? • Maintain and update our Resource Centre

15. The Educator’s Conference 27-30 November • Approximately 150 local and international delegates • Meets under the theme “Celebrate, Consolidate, Innovate” • 29th open session (150 additional delegates) to celebrate 10th Anniversary under the theme “Celebrating a Decade of Service to Workers Education” • Minister of Labour scheduled to deliver the anniversary keynote address to delegates and guests.

16. International Collaboration • Recently signed MoU with Michael Imadou Institute of Nigeria • On-going co-operation, exchanges and training programmes for the national trade union centres in Ghana and Nigeria; • Collaboration with several global trade union federations; • Development of popular education materials for the global mining and maritime solidarity project; • Co-facilitation of leadership skills for the Southern African Trade Union Leadership Academy’ • Support towards the development of the Swaziland Labour Academy • Hosting discussions on workers education with several international delegations visiting our country

17. Ditsela Today: Achievements noted on the eve of our 10th Anniversary • This unique institute has survived the challenges in the first decade of the new SA whilst pioneering important areas and approaches to union education; • Has shown steady growth from a start up budget of less than R500 000 to a current one in excess of R11m; • To date approximately 24 000 union leaders and officials representing tens of thousands of members have benefited from our programmes; • Remains the leading education, training and support services provider to the SA labour movement; • Seen as a vital asset by those associated with and committed to the labour movement nationally; • Workers education in SA is expanding and new frontiers are being explored to make more use of low-cost mass education including e-learning opportunities for shop stewards; • After several months of negotiations will be signing a Co-operation Agreement with the CCMA on education and training on 8 September.

18. Ten Key Challenges we need to embrace and grapple with • The rapidly changing profile of traditional work through business re-engineering such as outsourcing, casualisation, contract and agency labour and it’s impact on union organisation and density; • Workers education needs for productive employment and active citizenship are huge and diverse – ranging from basic to advanced education; • Current resource allocation must be substantially increased; • State funding for union education programmes is drop in the lake when compared to what subsidies and tax incentives employers receive from taxpayers; • All unions without exception are serious about empowering members but resources for education will always remain scarce in the face of meeting other pressing needs of workers;

19. Challenges cont… • Whilst some companies HR managers realise the importance of workers education and good industrial relations our studies show they are exceptions rather than the rule – the social objectives of the LRA go largely ignored; • Core ILO labour standards enshrined in SA legislation still remains elusive to a very large section of the workforce – more workers are becoming vulnerable to unfair labour practices; • Despite positive legislation to promote skills development we need to challenge the old conservative thinking of education as mere cost and rather than an investment in people development; • We need to review the current E&T system and the extent to which it promotes important worker education issues such as access (including to higher education institutes), recognition of prior learning, equity, portability of skills, union education etc; • ILO Convention 140 on Workers Rights to Paid Education and Training Leave needs to be ratified by the government and translated into law;

20. Conclusion • Workers and their trade unions have played and will continue to make an enormous contribution to society; • Despite the legacy of Apartheid education, workers education empowers workers for the variety of roles they play- as parents, leaders in the workplace and community, politics etc; • Look around (even here in parliament) and you will find graduates of the “South African Workers University”; • Workers education remains the life blood of democracy in the workplace, industry, society and statutory institutions of tripartite social dialogue; • Our democracy owes its survival not just to high profile union leaders but also to the thousands of “unsung volunteer heroes and heroines” who simply get on with servicing the needs of their members daily; • Our society must recognise and value the role workers and workers education play; • So long may DITSELA and workers education in SA continue to grow and be expanded. On behalf of our constituency A Big Thank You to the Chairperson and members of the Committee, the Department of Labour for their continued moral and financial support