‘Better paying jobs still going to white males’

The average National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) member is 39 years old, earning just more than R6 000 a month – and likely to still experience some form of racial discrimination.

This is one of the startling findings of a membership survey carried out at the union’s request by researchers from Wits University’s Society, Work and Development Institute.

“Whilst we are in a democratic order, the apartheid workplace regime seems hard to dismantle,” says the report, titled “Taking the Shop Floor Seriously”.

The survey’s findings are based on 834 personal interviews with Numsa members in all nine of its regions between January and May last year, and follow-up focus-group interviews with members and shop stewards later that year.

It also found that the average R6 000 a month wage would help support more than four other people living in the Numsa member’s household, of whom three were most likely to be jobless.

“Numsa members earn R6 129 per month on average, with members in the electrical sector earning the highest and members in the motor (and auto-components) industry the lowest,” the researchers, Christine Bischoff and Andries Bezuidenhout, state.

Fourty-one percent had medical aid and 95 percent were members of a provident fund.

Numsa is the country’s largest union organising in the motor, auto, engineering, tyre and rubber sectors.

It was one of the leading unions in the Struggle against apartheid, and continues to define itself as part of the militant left.

Interestingly, the survey found that about 12 percent of Numsa’s 300 000 members were card-carrying members of the SACP, although almost two-thirds were actively involved in political organisations, mostly the ANC.

Of those interviewed, 88 percent were voters and 86 percent believed it was the duty of all citizens to vote.

Almost half felt life had improved for workers, but more than a quarter felt it had either stayed the same or got worse.

While 64 percent of members felt there was still discrimination in the workplace, this applied to only 37 percent of those under the age of 35.

The researchers found that while there had been major successes in ending the racial division of labour, “we still see key positions are dominated by white males, and often informal arrangements are made to maintain white control in companies”.

Under apartheid, the better jobs were reserved for whites and pay scales reflected this.

There were “baas boys” who helped white foremen supervise and racial abuse was rampant.

Now, 18 years since democracy, the survey picked up a number of issues.

There was major dissatisfaction with anomalies in pay scales, where workers doing the same job reported they were being paid differently based on their race.

In addition to discrimination in earnings between race groups, Numsa members canvassed in the survey also spoke about racial bias in who received training and promotions and in the way workers were treated: “Blacks are treated unfairly, like rubbish”, said a Sedibeng member.

And while Numsa long ago succeeded in dismantling the “baas boy” system, remnants were found to remain in smaller workplaces.

In some factories, there was an “upward floating colour bar”, where, as soon as the majority of supervisors were black, certain key responsibilities were taken away from them and shifted up a level, to superintendents, for example.

“The segregation of facilities (such as toilets and canteens) still operates informally.”

And while very few Numsa members still lived in hostels or compounds, a new source of internal division had emerged in the form of labour broking.

The researchers said this played out in the differences that emerged where a workplace had both permanent workers and others that were hired through labour brokers, and who could be hired and fired at will.

This presented challenges for shop stewards.

Sunday Independent