Landmark roadfreight labour agreement provides lessons for the future

ALTHOUGH 2006 wage negotiations between the Road Freight Association (RFA) and company unions yielded a landmark two year agreement, the deal produced some headaches that nonetheless proved instructive for this year’s talks, Magretia Brown, labour relations manager for the RFA, told FTW recently. “We signed an agreement in 2006, but unfortunately the agreement could not be promulgated at the time it was signed off by the parties. The issue was representation. There were not enough union members and employers in the industry for the Minister of Labour to put his signature to the agreement so that it extends to employers and employees who do not belong to these parties,” said Brown. At that point in time employers were at 64% of required membership and the union members were in the low forty percentile, Brown said. The result was if not labour unrest then acute worker dissatisfaction. “The agreement was supposed to be implemented the first half of each year, but was not implemented until July. That had huge repercussions for the employees. You could argue that the employer benefited because there was no (wage) increase, but the unfortunate part is the unhappiness of the employee always comes back to the employer. The second lesson learned, Brown said, was the need to consider the unpredictability of the inflation rate. “For the first time in history we were able to sign a two-year agreement, which was beneficial to both parties. However, what happened this year, the second year, the increase which was tabled to begin on March 1 was 8% and inflation at that point was already 2% above that, so for the first time employees received their increase when it was due but it was below the inflation rate. A workforce that is unhappy and has to cope with less than the inflation rate is a workforce the employer has to deal with,” she said. Lessons learned will ease this year’s talks, Brown said. “The first hurdle we have to cross is the whole representational issue. We need to be sure that we are represented enough to negotiate. Number two, I don’t see we can get away with a figure below a two-digit figure. Inflation is very predictive as far as that is concerned. The upcoming World Cup is very predictive. We as employers have all the odds against us, so a double-digit increase is what we have to expect. I am hoping we can again clinch a two-year deal or even longer, but I do foresee we need to be more creative in how we link it with inflation,” she said. Brown said she doubts the unions would agree to the blanket fixed percentage increase as opposed to linking it with inflation.