Unions and private sector agree on port policy pitfalls

Alan Peat TRADE UNIONS and the private sector have called for the draft National Commercial Ports Policy to be put on hold pending further study. Although coming at it from different directions, and with utterly different final agendas, the unions and the private sector seem to have a lot of common middle-ground in their views of policy. “The unions’ reasoning might be different, but there are areas where we would concur,” said Peggy Drodskie, policy director at the SA Chamber of Business (Sacob). Both point to a lack of clarity on the final control of SA harbours. Unions and the private sector agree that the Department of Transport is the logical home. Another union motivation, according to Jane Barret, policy officer at the SA Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) - and backed in her review by Cosatu - is that the ports policy should not be finalised until Transnet sorts out its final restructuring. Drodskie suggested to FTW that there should be an investigation of how foreign ports are structured. “Then the commercial ports policy could be put through with better reasoning, and backed by practical experience.” Another area of superficial commonality is in the policy’s definition of the privatisation procedures - described as “concessioning” in government lingo. Both Barret and Drodskie agree that there are “many areas of weakness” in this area. Sacob - and its partner body the National African To page 12 From page 1 Federation of Chambers of Commerce (Nafcoc) - are keen to get this underway as soon as possible, but feel that the draft policy does not clearly define how this concessioning will be done. The unions, on the other hand, are disturbed at government’s haste in proceeding with concessioning until it is further reviewed. According to Barret, a lot of the government move is being driven by its desire to “reduce its involvement in port operations” through concessioning. But, she said, no analysis had been done on the effect this would have on the workforce. Both the bodies also question what is to be done about the harbours’ ageing equipment - and what role the new National Ports Authority (NPA) will have in the replacement and maintenance of capital equipment. The reviews both accept that this plays a major role in creating inefficiency in port operations. The final condemnation from Barret was that Satawu was concerned about the plan for the NPA to be a company. This would have its emphasis on profit with human resources “playing second fiddle”, she said. Both bodies have their submissions before government, and are keenly awaiting a revised draft of the ports policy - although both want very different wording in the next document. See also pages 6&7.