The Power Behind the Desk Democracy, Collective Bargaining and the Public Sector in South Africa

1. The Power Behind the Desk Democracy, Collective Bargaining and the Public Sector in South Africa Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen Presented at PSCBC Conference 15 February 2005

2. Overview • Conceptual discussion on governance, restructuring and developmental state • Typology for analysis • Collective bargaining experience in SA • Underlying causes and responses • Impacts and implications • Conclusion

3. Conceptual discussion • New managerialism and developmental restructuring • New managerialism (NPM) • Isolate, assign and measure • Private sector participation • Developmental restructuring • citizen’s voice, democratising and devolution • Integrated service delivery and turn-around strategies

4. The rise of new managerialism • Developing countries have adopted new managerialism. WHY? • Redefinition of the developmental state under the rubric of ‘good governance’ • Good governance = markets + democracy • Failure of national development plans • Global pressures • Extension of services

5. Governance as an analytical concept • Relational notion of governance • step outside the straightjacket of ‘good governance’ debate, towards assessing the political project that underpins its emergence • one approach is to develop schemas to assess different regime types • nascent strand to define governance as a combination of state strategies directed towards the democratisation of social distribution

6. Analytical means • Three propositions • public sector acts as both an agent of change, and reflects existing power structures • restructuring process both reflects and shapes mode of governance • restructuring process is linked to assumptions of the nature and functions of the developmental state

7. Typology for analysis

8. The Collective Bargaining Experience • Four phases • Phase One: Coalition between unions and government • Phase Two:Sharpening contradictions • Phase Three: Contradiction, dialogue and the ascendancy of new managerlism • Phase four: Restructuring agreement

9. Apartheid Inheritance • Inside the public service • Fragmentation • Pay determination without negotiations • Discrimination • Career systems structured for long service

10. Phase One • Coalition for change, loosely centred around the Reconstruction and Development Programme • Ambiguities even within the RDP • Strategy to take people on board • LRA and WPTPS improvements • WPTPS however transformed the idea of citizen to that of a customer

11. Phase One • Three Year Agreement • balanced worker security and restructuring • VSPs main savings instrument • GEAR strategy • On the one hand, ‘coalition for change’ in bargaining • On the other hand, wide divergence on macroeconomic policy

12. Phase Two: Unilateral Action • 1999- First public service strike under democracy • Trade unions interests and orientation questioned • Wage - service delivery trade off • Changing role of the state. From removal of discrimination to a more complex mandate for restructuring • Ascendancy of managers as drivers of reform programme

13. Phase Three The Re-emergence of Dialogue • Public Services Jobs Summit • framework to guide restructuring • Government agreed to creating 20 000 jobs in 2001/2002 wage settlement

14. Phase Four: A Restructuring Compact • Two major agreements signed after PSJS • Multi-year wages linked to inflation levels • Restructuring compact on human resources • Restructuring compact • match personnel to organisational strategy • strategic plans, followed by process of matching personnel • VSP and social plan

15. Underlying Causes and Responses • Macroeconomic dimensions • cost containment achieved • Delivery challenges • wide inequities in the distribution of staff still prevalent and needs to be addressed • Black economic empowerment • driver to create markets in the public sector • Globalisation

16. Impacts and Implications • Democracy • rise of management at the expense of citizens and political authority • services turned into commidities, and collective transformed into singular • Service delivery • Changes the unofficial budget rules • Places a great deal of faith in managerial prerogative

17. Impacts and Implications • Women • lower level female workers the most vulnerable • Women’s organisations provide an important input into restructuring process. What impact have they had on restructuring • Trade Unions • Social unionism as a way forward • Social movement and restructuring

18. Shift towards empowering management and departmental level restructuring Will fundamentally alter power relations in society, and poses a challenge to trade unions and other social actors. Government argues that this approach is needed to ‘accelerate delivery’ The mode of governance is still being constructed in the public service, the orientation and direction seeks to disempower civil society. Conclusion

19. New directions • Institutional level restructuring • Challenges for both labour and government • But • Biggest changes in service delivery to the poor • Institutions able to shape macro level interventions • Emerging consensus that new managerialism on its own will not transform the public service