>[The main story, from the Johannesburg Sunday Times, is below. Some whining
>from Business Report magazine to begin with.]
>
But there was also this (the very last para is a word to the wise):
Existence of trade unions is a necessity for humanity
By Terry Bell
Trade unions have come in for a bit of a bashing again over the past week, both from the fringes of the movement and from without. They were accused of being wreckers, apparently hellbent on destroying society as we know it or of having anti-democratic political agendas.
The first accusation was the claim that unions wish to destroy the existing social and economic order by hampering foreign investment and blocking privatisation. The visit here this week of President George W Bush and the hostile reaction to it, especially from the major trade union federation, Cosatu, saw this hackneyed accusation trotted out again.
The other accusation of pursuing a political agenda opposed to human rights came from the MWU/Solidarity, the amalgamation of the apartheid-era and "whites-only" mine and steel workers' unions.
They directed it at Chez Milani, the general secretary of the Federation of Unions of SA (Fedusa) because Milani had demanded action by the government against MWU/Solidarity for the illegal and unconstitutional practice of racism.
But Milani heads a federation that is professedly "non-political". Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, as head of a "socialist" federation, stated again that Cosatu was not and could not be a political party.
For the "socialism" of trade unions is not a clear-cut alternative to the present order. It tends to be the label given to broadly humanitarian policies, to the right jobs, education, healthcare and housing for all within our present society.
What Vavi and Milani could have added was that trade unions are essential to the reasonably fair functioning of this free enterprise, capitalist society.
They are the driving force behind the checks on the abuse of power by the owners of capital and employers of labour. Without checks and balances, the naked exercise of profit-driven economic power leads to barbarism and brutality.
Which is not to say that all employers are latent brutes and consciousless exploiters. They are not, but the nature of the system makes it necessary for them to match the lowest common denominator or go under.
In the history of our present system there have been some classic examples of the fate of humanitarian capitalists in an unregulated and non-unionised world. Take Robert Owen, for example.
A mill owner in Lanarkshire, Scotland, at the start of the industrial revolution, he deplored the increasingly bad conditions and starvation wages paid to workers in what a famous hymn described as "those dark Satanic mills" Click here .
He built his workers decent housing, provided schools for their children and paid adequate wages - all of which cost him a great deal of money.
At the same time, he had to sell his products in competition with other mill owners who provided no housing, schools or decent wages. Owen's Lanarkshire mill ceased being profitable.
He is probably the best-known historic example that bankruptcy is the fate of any "good" boss in a competitive world powered by uncontrolled greed and the maximisation of profit.
Like political power in a parliamentary democracy, there have to be checks and balances in place if the extent of exploitation is to be limited. That is the role of the trade unions.
They are creations of the system, a natural reaction to the need to provide, through the collective power of labour, some checks on the barbaric extremes the system is capable of.
Behind the protective shield of the unions, of course, there are any variety of political and religious views and beliefs held by members. The common identity they share within the union is that of wage earners, of workers.
As such, they have an obvious interest in maximum unity. So opposition to divisions on the basis of colour, gender or creed is an obvious principle.
But it is principle shared by liberals, socialists and other democrats of various stripes, both inside and outside unions. It is not a "political" stance in any but the broadest sense.
The same applies to support for state ownership, particularly of public services. An enterprise controlled through politicians who rely on the votes of workers to be elected is more likely to be influenced by workers than one owned by an individual or anonymous corporation.
The element of socialist philosophy that enters into this is the argument that essential social services such as basic levels of water, education, housing and healthcare should be provided on the basis that the priority should be human need and not profit.
This is part of the principle of ensuring that, in a world of plenty, every human being should have the right to what could be classified as a "decent life".
To support such a principle is hardly the role of wreckers. Any more than it is a recipe for the revolutionary transformation of a potentially barbaric society that makes the existence of trade unions a necessity for humanity.