Constructing South African Social Compacting – By Yoliswa Makhasi

Mark Heywood writing an editorial in the Maverick Citizen criticised the way President Ramaphosa places a premium on consultation but using a broken telephone to do so (Heywood, 2020). He writes: “Many activists on the front lines of civil society ask themselves who the president is referring to. “Not us”, they say. This is largely because the institutions and organisations via which the president and ministers communicate are broken. From outside it looks as if they have been reduced to tender markets and travel clubs.”

By Yoliswa Makhasi,

Director General at Department of Public Service and Administration

(Writes in her personal capacity)

 

 

Building a social compact

The President’s State of the Nation’s speech of February 2020 mentions the word ‘compact’ ten times and the word ‘together’ 16 times. This reflects an earnest plea to the various social forces in our society – whether it be business, labour, churches, communities – to partner in efforts to “continue the onward march to improve the lives of our people” (SONA, 13 February 2020).

In those good old days where we attended mass meetings, Siyanqoba rallies and marches, these invariably began with salutations and messages from the tripartite alliance partners and the ANC’s close allies such as SANCO, COSAS and SASCO.   Was there much content to these messages – did they reflect more than a rehearsing and rehashing of movement protocol?  After the event, the alliance partners would still have to fight some of their battles alone.  Today, while there has been some progress in developing a tripartite alliance council, does it deliver a platform for joint action to complete the national democratic revolution?

How do we prevent the concept of a ‘social compact’ to go in the same direction?  How can it be something that we pay more than lip service to in speeches and meetings? This article looks at areas of action for effective social compacting as we address the twin crises of health and the economy accentuated by the Covid19 pandemic.

After defining social compacting, the article argues that firstly, for effective social compacting, hope and trust must be complemented by tangible trade-offs.  Secondly, that diversity of parties in social compacts is a strength, not a weakness. Thirdly, that single issue or sectoral social compacts have better chances of success than those embracing too many issues. Lastly, that levelling of the playing field between various parties is a further criterion of success. These issues are discussed in turn.

Defining social compacts in the South African setting

In 2014, the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (Mistra) was commissioned by the National Planning Commission to develop a report on social compacts.  They argued that the most instructive definition in the South Africa discourse is that a social compact has “the attributes of a core agreement among various societal role-players and their government that outlines the rights and duties of each party. Further they argue that “it requires elements of social partnership; it can only succeed in the context of social dialogue; and the processes of forging it would entail some level of collective bargaining” (Mistra), 2014, p. 4).  Thus, social compacting should be seen as both a process and an institutional framework.

Mistra has subsequently called for an all embracing social compact and Joel Netshitenzhe, the Executive Director of Mistra, addressing a Department of Arts and Culture Convention on 6 February 2020 argues that the “unfortunate confluence of negative macrosocial dynamics…hopefully… is sufficient of a burning platform to nudge society towards a social compact” (Netshitenzhe, 2020).  In the context of what has happened since February this year, the flames are now so high that some social forces are indeed fleeing towards social compacts.

We have seen the business organisations such as Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) and the Black Business Council (BBC) uniting to form Business for South Africa (B4SA) and publishing a plan for accelerated economic recovery.  And we have seen the liquor industry in the face of a renewed ban of their sales, also calling for a social compact that drives behavioural change regarding the use and consumption of alcohol (Sibani Mngadi spokesperson for South African Liquor Brand Owners Association, 21 July 2020).   At local levels, community organisations have come together in Community Action Network’s (CAN’s) to co-ordinate food relief and address local food security in the face of the Covid19 crisis. So, the call of the President in February this year was in some senses prophetic.

Tangible trade offs

Netshitenzhe in his closing remarks to the Department of Arts and Culture Convention says: “Critical in this exercise are two currencies that are fundamental to social compacting: hope and trust across society.” (Netshitenzhe, 2020) SCC p4.  This article argues that in addition a social compact which means all things to all people and does not hold every party accountable, is not an effective social compact.

Organised business, labour, commuity and government are no strangers to hold jobs summits and sigining accords and framework agreements at the National Economic Labour and Development Council (Nedlac). They did so in 2008 and again in 2018.   The 2018 Job Summit Framework Agreement contains 177 commitments – some vague, some specific – targeting to create 100 000 jobs in 2018. Two years later, more jobs have been lost than created, although a number of legitimate reasons exist why the number of jobs have not been created.

However, its fundamental lack of success in not turning the job crisis around was firstly, the inability to agree on the causes of job loss and a common vision of a job absorbing economy and secondly, the absence of tangible trade offs on hard issues. In the language of consultant speak, commitments are just inputs or activities which need to be aligned to outputs and impacts.

It is possible that the lack of trust and cohesion to agree on trade offs has declined since the advent of our democracy.  The previous general secretary of COSATU, Zwelinzima Vavi, addressig the launch of a tripartite business and labour Millenium Labour Council in 2000 argued that:

 ‘We must build a mutually beneficial partnership based on trust. It is clear that there will be trade-offs that will have to be made. In our view, such trade-offs should not result in one-sided sacrifice by workers. In this vein, we must avoid a chicken and pig partnership. The chicken makes a partial contribution while the pig sacrifices its life in order to create bacon and eggs.’

!ke e: lxarra llke Diverse people unite

While the word ‘diversity’ in the context of our increasingly racialised world leaves a bitter taste in many mouths these days, when it comes to effective social compacting, bringing only ‘insiders’ together would resemble a deal made by those with a common interest rather than a social compact which should bring together the widest variety of insiders and outsiders to identify the intersection of their interests for the common good.

Mark Heywood writing an editorial in the Maverick Citizen criticised the way President Ramaphosa places a premium on consultation but using a broken telephone to do so (Heywood, 2020). He writes: “Many activists on the front lines of civil society ask themselves who the president is referring to. “Not us”, they say. This is largely because the institutions and organisations via which the president and ministers communicate are broken. From outside it looks as if they have been reduced to tender markets and travel clubs.”

We will return later to fixing broken telephones, but legitimate social compacts need to go the extra mile to bring all relevant parties to answer the telephone and participate in the discussion. Often insiders cut the telephone lines or refuse to allow them to be repaired.

Single issues vs all-in social compacting

Reference is often made to countries such as Australia and Ireland, who, when facing unprecedented economic crisis, organised labour recognised that a tripartite accord between business, labour and government was the better devil than facing conservative monetary and fiscal policies. In the Australian case, the unions “agreed to moderate and centrally set wage claims through agreement with Government in return for improvements to the social wage, tax cuts, and large-scale job creation by government” (McDonald, 2014).

However, this was in 1983 and one could feasibly argue that the conditions of struggle have become significantly more complex, what with globalisation, the decline in the veracity of alternative visions of how to organise society and weakened national states, organised labour, political parties and civil society.

In this context, single issue compacting may be more manageable institutionally and in terms of being able to agree trade-offs. In the President’s State of the Nation address this year he announced the imminent signing of a social compact on electricity.  The strength of this compact is that it tackles the defined and critical issues of energy security and the draft version requires each party to give something in return for all South Africans to have access to a stable energy supply at a reasonable price.  In addition to labour agreeing that worker’s money can be used to reduce its debt, Eskom is required to become more efficient and holds it staff – past and present to account.  Business is required to bring more energy to the grid, government is required to provide a speedier enabling framework and the community leadership is required to initiate a campaign to get community members to pay for electricity.

Compacting on a level playing field

As indicated above, social compacting is both a process and an institutional framework. Invariably it starts with parties having access to different forms of power including strike power, violence or access to law enforcement.  And in most cases, there is a significant power and possibly knowledge differential when it comes to negotiating or engaging on particular issues.

The Lewis Foundation sponsored a report on achieving a just transition where it argues that: “A central tenet of social dialogue is that it should shift policymaking from a discourse of power to a discourse of reason by requiring stakeholders to test their proposals against both the implications for social objectives and the evidence” (p24)

This requires that social partners, including vulnerable and marginalised groups “be supported in themselves developing the knowledge and skills needed to understand the issues across scales and sectors, and mobilising and organising around shared perspectives and agendas. (Foundation, 2019 , p. 14).

Knowledge and skills are often value laden – who has more knowledge, the Australian mining prospector or a local headman who has lived all his life along the East Coast, for example?  Nevertheless, creating a level playing field involving trust building through measures such as extensive engagement, capacity building, provision of independent technical support and or independent and credible facilitators should not be underestimated.  The success of securing successful transitions to Bus Rapid Transit systems through negotiations between the taxi industry and government has been attributed to the introduction of some of these measures.

Conclusion

The developmental state as envisaged in the NDP requires that we build a cohesive state that is united in action with the people, labour movement, the government etc. A social compact that binds all social partners to an agreement that commits all in actions that address poverty, unemployment, inequalities and related social ills as a priority is critical. Covid19 has exposed us all not only to a virus but to a new terrain of struggle – in our homes, our workplaces, our economy and society.   This article looks at ways in which we can use social compacting – not a slogan – but as a tool – as we engage in this new terrain.

Bibliography

1. Mistra (2014). National Planning Commission: Social Compact Report 2014. Pretoria: National Planning Commission.
2. Foundation, L. (2019 ). Deep Transition Delving into social and economic justice in transitions to a climate responsive economy. Cape Town : Lewis Foundation .
3. Heywood, M. (2020, July 29). Covid-19 Emergency & Lockdown: What went wrong and what will it take to fix it? Retrieved from Daily Maverick: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-07-29-covid-19-emergency-lockdown-what-went-wrong-and-what-will-it-take-to-fix-it/
4. McDonald, D. (2014). ANC Umrabulo Round Table: Solidarity with the Australian Labour Movement and the Lessons of the ALP-ACTU Accord.
5. Netshitenzhe, J. (2020). Pillars of a social compactd, paper to Social Compact Convention organised by Department of Arts and Culture.