INTRODUCTION
B. Holding Version of Corporate Organization
II. CORPORATISM IN SOUTH AFRICA
The still fragile South African democracy was achieved through a negotiated elite pact. The main parties to the pact were the previously ruling National Party (NP) and the now ruling African National Congress (ANC). Much of the political activity of the interregnum between 1990, when the then NP government formally opened the way for negotiations, and 1994, when the first democratic elections took place and the Government of National Unity was installed, was marked by an extensive forum movement (see Shubane and Shaw 1993). The forums were created by antiapartheid civil society formations with the purpose of shaping policy directions across a wide range of social and economic issues. In the end, the forums were unsuccessful as formulators of policy, but they were seedbeds for an ongoing experiment with corporatism.
At present the most important descendant of the forum movement is the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac), which was estab- lished by parliamentary act in late 1994 (Act 35 of 1994). The intended scope of Nedlac’s policy activities is indicated by the existence of four ‘‘negotiating chambers’’ dealing with, respectively, public finance and monetary policy, trade and industry, labor market, and socioeconomic development issues. The roughly 60 members of Nedlac’s Executive Council represent the state and organizations
of labor, business, and ‘‘the community,’’ respectively. The inclusion of commu- nity-based interest organizations is, however, limited to the Development Cham- ber. In the other chambers, representation is strictly corporatist in the sense that only labor, business, and government are present. One other exception is that officials of the South African Reserve Bank are included in the chamber for public finance and monetary policy.
Formally, Nedlac is ‘‘a negotiating, not an advisory body, whose brief is to produce agreements, not recommendations’’ (Naidoo 1995). An ambitious in- terpretation of Nedlac’s formal terms of reference would open even more possi- bilities. It must ‘‘seek to reach consensus and conclude agreements on matters pertaining to social and economic policy’’ and ‘‘consider all significant changes to social and economic policy before it is implemented or introduced in Parlia- ment’’ (Act 35 of 1994, section 5 (1)). This wording contains the potential for placing a very wide range of policy issues within the competence of Nedlac.
Nedlac is an attempt to institutionalize corporatist ideas and trends which, depending on the definitions accepted, could be traced as far back as the 1930s (Pretorius 1994, 1996). However, in its deracialized mode and in the sense of formalized corporatist interest intermediation, rather than as a set of tripartite advisory bodies, the trend is less than a decade old. The enactment of the 1995 Labour Relations Act (LRA) set in place a legislative framework which has the potential to institutionalize corporatism down to the workplace. This potential, supported by Nedlac’s own attempts to expand the arena of negotiated involve- ment in socioeconomic programs to various levels of society, has prompted some commentators to declare South Africa to be in a relatively advanced stage of corporatization (Baskin 1996; Webster and Adler 1997).
However, the future of corporatism is not assured. Since the establishment of Nedlac, the representatives of state, business, and labor have failed to reach agreement on some central issues. The failures stem largely from deep ideological divisions between the social partners. The current focus of ideological conflicts is the government’s programme for Growth, Employment and Redistribution, commonly known as Gear (see Section IV). In policy terms, the differences were, during 1997 and 1998, reflected in failure to achieve agreement on government legislative proposals which were intended to govern basic conditions of employ- ment and the demographic profiles of worker and management corps. The atten- dant controversies clearly revealed organized business’s preference for a flexible labor market, as against the unions’ insistence on a strictly controlled market. In line with liberal and capitalist orthodoxies, business also expressed concern about the large degrees of decision-making autonomy which the relevant legislation conferred on the Minister of Labour. The government, in it’s turn, advocated
‘‘controlled flexibility.’’ Although it supported the unions in principle and in much of the detail of their positions, government tended to encourage pragmatic concessions from both sides. In the case of the 1997 Basic Conditions of Employ-
ment Bill (BCEB), for example, this was done mainly with a view to containing labor costs for both business and the state, while at the same time limiting undue exploitation of workers. When, after some 18 months of intense acrimony, the social partners failed to reach agreement on the BCEB, the government took its own version of the bill to Parliament. There it was approved after discussion in legislative committees which were dominated by the ANC and chaired by former Cosatu unionists. In the case of the 1998 employment equity legislation, business in effect acceded to labor and government demands.
In their campaigns around the labor legislation, as previously in those around the labor rights clauses in the Constitution, the unions’ major weapons were, arguably, not corporatist or tripartite negotiation but collective action and direct lobbying. Business leaders are wont to criticize the unions’ use of such instruments as being inimical to bi- and tripartite negotiations. But business orga- nizations themselves favor conventional lobbying techniques. In fact, the govern- ment, unions, and business all have on important occasions bypassed Nedlac when dealing with issues which ostensibly fall within its brief. Moreover, it can be argued that effective political influence by business is more often than not exercised trough nonpublic lobbying by alliances of corporations or groupings of individual business leaders, rather than by organized business interest groups.
Predictions of South African corporatism’s demise were strengthened by the government’s and the main interest groups’ ambivalent and muted responses to the report of the President’s Labour Market Commission (LMC) (LMC 1996).
The LMC argued that ‘‘the practice of voice regulation at the national level must be enhanced by means of a nationally negotiated Accord for Employment and Growth, involving all the social partners.’’ In pursuit of this objective, the Com- mission recommended a ‘‘Presidential Jobs Summit’’ (LMC 1996:191, 192).
After much prevarication by all concerned, the summit materialized in late 1998.
It produced a number of resolutions and plans for the creation of jobs, but the participants agreed to avoid the central labor market issues and, more generally, Gear itself.
The failure of corporatist processes to resolve core disagreements about national economic strategies and basic labor policies indicates the fragility, but not necessarily the demise, of South African corporatism. The present phase of corporatism is relatively young, and Nedlac was instituted with the hard task of dealing with deeply entrenched social and political antagonisms. It is unrealistic to expect immediate or continuous success in the negotiation of such divisions.
Moreover, all the major interest organizations have repeatedly reaffirmed their support for Nedlac.
Whatever the future of corporatism in its present form might be, the ques- tion whether or not South African corporatism is declining or ascendant is not the only important issue for inquiry. It is equally important to ask what the con-
cepts and the accompanying propositions tell us about the likelihood of successful negotiation politics.
If theorizations of corporatism (and of similar configurations such as conso- ciationalism) in Europe are taken as benchmarks, there could be little doubt that, in South Africa, the relevant structural conditions are not conducive to negotiated agreements between ‘‘class enemies.’’ However, the depth and intractability of social divisions which some observers have noted as obstacles to corporatism in South Africa have been identified by others as the main reasons for instituting it. Also, it was for long predicted that apartheid could not be ended by negotiation.
It was ended by negotiation. So perhaps corporatism or, more generally, the cre- ation of political order through negotiation is possible.