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19 August, 2009
As employers refuse to listen and carry on doing what they want in retrenching workers we use this case study of Nissan South Africa to ask hard questions about our strategies...
Read these two articles reported in COSATU news and Numsa news on-line.
Article 1: Nissan 2001
"About 916 metalworkers at the Pretoria plant of Nissan-SA, the motor manufacturer, will sign voluntary severance packages agreement, ending a six-month-old retrenchments dispute at the plant between the NUMSA and the company. The union, which said it did not want to worsen the dispute on issues that can be resolved through extensive dialogue, said it hoped and trusted that workers will respond favourably to the package. "The agreement signals the reversal of unilateral trend and parties consulting time and again on all issues affecting workers. We hope this bad history of unilateralism will end the current agreement. It added that the agreement would protect workers from the tyranny of forced retrenchments, which has negative consequences in terms of pay. "We hope that the company will learn from this process, it will be possible after all, for the company to create jobs in the long term...we have broken new ground in the realm of retrenchment agreement," it said."
Article 2: Nissan 2007
Nissan SA Motor which threatened to retrench 410 employees this week has been plunged into another controversy - this time after demanding to offer meagre voluntary severance packages equivalent to amounts it awarded five years ago. The furore erupted after Numsa reached an in principle agreement with Nissan to replace anticipated forced retrenchments this week with negotiations for voluntary retirement packages for longest-serving employees.
Angry Numsa negotiators now have expressed "disgust and revulsion", fearing that employees who gave dedicated service to the Japanese-based car manufacturer would never accept starvation packages considering the high inflation. The union favoured the severance packages to be more than the double amounts currently offered.
Yesterday Nissan management expressed grave concern over globalisation effects, increased international competition and refused to consider alternatives to reducing the high number of those earmarked for voluntary packages, Numsa local coordinator Ali Makhusha said.
Nissan had earlier introduced unilaterally retrenchment packages with effect from April 12, 2007. But, it later changed its position after union staged mass demonstrations at Japanese embassy, appealing for intervention of the Japanese government."
Some hard questions
Other retrenchment processes have occurred at Nissan bringing the number of workers employed by Nissan down from 7500 in 1998 to about 1500 in 2007. The reality is that Nissan has employed flexible workers after various retrenchment exercises that have taken place over this period. The company retrenches not because of insufficient work but to maintain high levels of profitability. The problem is that growth and profitability is measured against the previous year so that each successful year for a company means that the pressure is even greater the following year to increase productivity and profitability. This is done through cutting costs and getting workers to work harder for less. How do you get workers to do this? You use a number of methods including replacing workers with technology, increasing workers fear, and of course keeping workers desperate and hungry through ensuring they are in precarious work. In both cases NUMSA was able to stop a unilateral retrenchment process started by the company and secure more money for workers than would have been the case if there was no union. But to do this the union was forced to fall back to the use of voluntary retrenchment packages to soften the blow of the retrenchment.
Whilst NUMSA went on to secure sufficient size packages in 2007 the impact on the workers leaving and those staying behind is likely to be negative. Such packages represent a short term cost to the company but can often be a long term industrial death sentence for the workers. Often times workers that take such packages do not use the money wisely and soon find themselves penniless and outside the labour market. Worker representatives in the factory are often longer serving workers and opt for the package, breaking down leadership. In the 2007 example 5 shop stewards and the branch chair opted for the voluntary package. The union's power is undermined at the plant making it easier for the company each time they wish to make changes at the plant. In the end management get what they want; a more flexible work force.
. Employers who repeatedly do the same thing and then reverse their action are either stupid or employing a strategy. It is clear that Nissan uses a cynical strategy; they declare retrenchments unilaterally placing workers and unions on the back foot where they must fight even to get to the table. In 2001 NUMSA threatened to march on the Japanese embassy and Nissan attempted to interdict the march. In 2007 NUMSA did march on the Japanese embassy. These efforts were focused on getting to the table where it was clear workers would be discussing how much severance as opposed to disputing the need for replacing full time workers with precarious jobs.
Whilst we must acknowledge the difficulties of dealing with such issues and the importance of the resistance shown by the union to these unilateral actions by profit crazy company we can learn lessons from these examples by asking some hard questions. We have no ready answers to these questions. They are asked in the spirit of being self critical and for the purpose of reflection and analysis of strategy.
• What role do shop stewards play in negotiating such deals which end with them taking the very retrenchment deals they have negotiated? Does this impact on a genuine will to stop the retrenchments?
• Can we ever think that a retrenchment exercise is an isolated event or part of an ongoing process?
• If we knew in 1998 that Nissan planned to make 80% of its jobs redundant and employ casual and temporary workers would the fight not be different to an approach that loses a few hundred workers here and a few hundred workers there?
• Is the power of the union on the shop floor greater today than it was in 1998 or has it been reduced?
• What has happened to the 6000 workers since they left Nissan?
• The industrial strategy for the auto sector which would have informed some of the unions long term thinking on retrenchments, was to revive the industry and create more jobs, but what kind of jobs have these been?
• The reasons given by management each time use different words but amount to the same thing, so are these separate exercises or part of a longer strategic process?
• Can we ever expect a different result if as labour we do the same thing in response to management's attacks?
• Given that many of the jobs lost are casualised can we fight such issues at the workplace without a comprehensive strategy for organizing casual workers being given organizational priority?
Think about some of these questions and respond with any answers to the editor of UMOJA.
Read these two articles reported in COSATU news and Numsa news on-line.
Article 1: Nissan 2001
"About 916 metalworkers at the Pretoria plant of Nissan-SA, the motor manufacturer, will sign voluntary severance packages agreement, ending a six-month-old retrenchments dispute at the plant between the NUMSA and the company. The union, which said it did not want to worsen the dispute on issues that can be resolved through extensive dialogue, said it hoped and trusted that workers will respond favourably to the package. "The agreement signals the reversal of unilateral trend and parties consulting time and again on all issues affecting workers. We hope this bad history of unilateralism will end the current agreement. It added that the agreement would protect workers from the tyranny of forced retrenchments, which has negative consequences in terms of pay. "We hope that the company will learn from this process, it will be possible after all, for the company to create jobs in the long term...we have broken new ground in the realm of retrenchment agreement," it said."
Article 2: Nissan 2007
Nissan SA Motor which threatened to retrench 410 employees this week has been plunged into another controversy - this time after demanding to offer meagre voluntary severance packages equivalent to amounts it awarded five years ago. The furore erupted after Numsa reached an in principle agreement with Nissan to replace anticipated forced retrenchments this week with negotiations for voluntary retirement packages for longest-serving employees.
Angry Numsa negotiators now have expressed "disgust and revulsion", fearing that employees who gave dedicated service to the Japanese-based car manufacturer would never accept starvation packages considering the high inflation. The union favoured the severance packages to be more than the double amounts currently offered.
Yesterday Nissan management expressed grave concern over globalisation effects, increased international competition and refused to consider alternatives to reducing the high number of those earmarked for voluntary packages, Numsa local coordinator Ali Makhusha said.
Nissan had earlier introduced unilaterally retrenchment packages with effect from April 12, 2007. But, it later changed its position after union staged mass demonstrations at Japanese embassy, appealing for intervention of the Japanese government."
Some hard questions
Other retrenchment processes have occurred at Nissan bringing the number of workers employed by Nissan down from 7500 in 1998 to about 1500 in 2007. The reality is that Nissan has employed flexible workers after various retrenchment exercises that have taken place over this period. The company retrenches not because of insufficient work but to maintain high levels of profitability. The problem is that growth and profitability is measured against the previous year so that each successful year for a company means that the pressure is even greater the following year to increase productivity and profitability. This is done through cutting costs and getting workers to work harder for less. How do you get workers to do this? You use a number of methods including replacing workers with technology, increasing workers fear, and of course keeping workers desperate and hungry through ensuring they are in precarious work. In both cases NUMSA was able to stop a unilateral retrenchment process started by the company and secure more money for workers than would have been the case if there was no union. But to do this the union was forced to fall back to the use of voluntary retrenchment packages to soften the blow of the retrenchment.
Whilst NUMSA went on to secure sufficient size packages in 2007 the impact on the workers leaving and those staying behind is likely to be negative. Such packages represent a short term cost to the company but can often be a long term industrial death sentence for the workers. Often times workers that take such packages do not use the money wisely and soon find themselves penniless and outside the labour market. Worker representatives in the factory are often longer serving workers and opt for the package, breaking down leadership. In the 2007 example 5 shop stewards and the branch chair opted for the voluntary package. The union's power is undermined at the plant making it easier for the company each time they wish to make changes at the plant. In the end management get what they want; a more flexible work force.
. Employers who repeatedly do the same thing and then reverse their action are either stupid or employing a strategy. It is clear that Nissan uses a cynical strategy; they declare retrenchments unilaterally placing workers and unions on the back foot where they must fight even to get to the table. In 2001 NUMSA threatened to march on the Japanese embassy and Nissan attempted to interdict the march. In 2007 NUMSA did march on the Japanese embassy. These efforts were focused on getting to the table where it was clear workers would be discussing how much severance as opposed to disputing the need for replacing full time workers with precarious jobs.
Whilst we must acknowledge the difficulties of dealing with such issues and the importance of the resistance shown by the union to these unilateral actions by profit crazy company we can learn lessons from these examples by asking some hard questions. We have no ready answers to these questions. They are asked in the spirit of being self critical and for the purpose of reflection and analysis of strategy.
• What role do shop stewards play in negotiating such deals which end with them taking the very retrenchment deals they have negotiated? Does this impact on a genuine will to stop the retrenchments?
• Can we ever think that a retrenchment exercise is an isolated event or part of an ongoing process?
• If we knew in 1998 that Nissan planned to make 80% of its jobs redundant and employ casual and temporary workers would the fight not be different to an approach that loses a few hundred workers here and a few hundred workers there?
• Is the power of the union on the shop floor greater today than it was in 1998 or has it been reduced?
• What has happened to the 6000 workers since they left Nissan?
• The industrial strategy for the auto sector which would have informed some of the unions long term thinking on retrenchments, was to revive the industry and create more jobs, but what kind of jobs have these been?
• The reasons given by management each time use different words but amount to the same thing, so are these separate exercises or part of a longer strategic process?
• Can we ever expect a different result if as labour we do the same thing in response to management's attacks?
• Given that many of the jobs lost are casualised can we fight such issues at the workplace without a comprehensive strategy for organizing casual workers being given organizational priority?
Think about some of these questions and respond with any answers to the editor of UMOJA.