BuaNews (Tshwane)
Gabi Khumalo
21 April 2008
Venice — Trade unions must ensure that their members are not discriminated against HIV and AIDS and that they benefit from the awareness programmes available, says Minister of Social Development, Zola Skweyiya.
"The greatest challenge facing our subcontinent is the negative economic and social consequences of HIV and AIDS and yet some of the workers' movements do not consider HIV and AIDS fight as part of their own cause," said Minister Skweyiya. Mr Skweyiya was recently speaking at the International Conference on Decentralisation of Labour Market in Venice, Italy. Hosted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) with the theme "Decentralisation and Coordination: the twin challenge of labour market policy", the conference aimed at reviewing the success of the approach identified at the last conference in 1998.
Mr Skweyiya said that only if trade unions and their members put all their force, enthusiasm and solidarity behind the awareness programmes, a caring and compassionate workplace will be achieved. "I congratulate workplace partnerships that have developed these programmes and encourage the unions to pursue these programmes in workplaces wherein they are non existent," Minister Skweyiya said. He also welcomed the conclusions of the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) Global Report on the Status of Employment Equity in the Workplace, which states that "to tackle discrimination at work, the creation of more equal societies must become a central goal of development policies."
Mr Skweyiya said: "For our part we have assembled various pieces of legislation directed at creating an equal society which includes the Employment Equity Act. "All these efforts are directed at also fundamentally transforming workplace relations in the country from adversarialism to co-operation and trust to bring about labour relations stability." He however, noted that this transformation should not only be viewed as a transformation of labour relations narrowly, but a broader societal transformation. Commenting on the report on "Changing patterns in the World of Work", which reflects that progress is slow in creating decent work opportunities for all, the minister said despite the daunting statistics, they believe that the poverty challenge is not insurmountable adding that there is hope. The report showed that whilst poverty is unevenly distributed across the globe, in 2005 around three billion of the 4.6 billion people of working age were either not working or looking for work, with 84 percent of them living in the developing world.
It also noted that about 52 percent of the population in sub-Saharan Africa lives beneath the poverty threshold. The minister added that the findings are mirrored by the South African labour market realities, which requires ongoing restructuring to respond to the negative consequences of globalisation and challenges of managing the democratic transition, so as to facilitate for a globally integrated economy. "To successfully achieve these we have pursued labour market policies aimed at promoting economic growth, employment absorption, as well as sound and stable labour relations.
"These have resulted in the elimination of workplace inequality and discrimination and have secured skills development for thousands of young people," he said.
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