TRC Final Report

Volume 4

Chapter 2

Volume FOUR Chapter TWO

Institutional Hearing: Business and Labour

■ INTRODUCTION

1 At the heart of the business and labour hearings lay the complex power relations of apartheid, the legacy of which continues to afflict the post-apartheid society. These include the consequences of job reservation, influx control, wages, unequal access to resources, migrant labour and the hostel system. Adjacent to these historic developments were industrial unrest, strikes and the struggle for the right to organise trade unions.

2 The hearings illuminated the widely divergent perspectives of different sectors of the economy. Sharp differences emerged over the role business played or failed to play in the apartheid years. Questions were raised as to whether business had been involved in the violation of human rights, how business related to the state and whether or not business benefited from apartheid. In the process, the very premise of business as a homogeneous entity was questioned.

3 Differences also emerged between businesses in different sectors of the economy: between businesses of different sizes, between predominantly white-led business and predominantly black-led business organisations and, most dramatically, between representatives of employers and trade unions.

4 While the Commission had called for evidence relating to the period 1960 to 1994, the vast bulk of the evidence led at the hearing dated from the late 1970s onwards. This was to be expected, given that many of the individuals involved were not active in the 1960s.

5 Only the white Mineworkers’ Union and the South African Agricultural Union refused to participate. A few (most notably the National Council of Trade Unions or NACTU) failed to provide their promised submissions. Others did not respond to the invitation. Most notable amongst these were the multinational oil corporations (which were the largest foreign investors in South Africa) and predominantly white labour organisations, such as the Typographical Union, the Public Servants Association and the United Workers Union of South Africa.

■ CULPABILITY, COLLABORATION AND INVOLVEMENT

6 From amongst the various different perceptions of the relationship between business and apartheid, two dominant positions emerged at the hearing. One view, which sees apartheid as part of a system of racial-capitalism, held that apartheid was beneficial for (white) business because it was an integral part of a system premised on the exploitation of black workers and the destruction of black entrepreneurial activity. According to this argument, business as a whole benefited from the system, although some sections of the business community (most notably Afrikaner capital, the mining houses and the armaments industry) benefited more than others did. This position is most clearly articulated in submissions by the African National Congress (ANC), the South African Communist Party (SACP), the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), Professor Sampie Terreblanche of the University of Stellenbosch and the Black Management Forum (BMF).

7 The other position, argued mainly by business, claims that apartheid raised the costs of doing business, eroded South Africa’s skill base and undermined long-term productivity and growth. In this view, the impact of apartheid was to harm the economy. This argument was most clearly discernible in submissions from:

a business organisations such as the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of South Africa (SEIFSA), the South African Chamber of Business (SACOB), the Afrikaner Handelsinstituut (AHI), the Council of South African Banks (COSAB), the Textile Federation and the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry;

b specific companies and corporations such as South African Breweries (SAB), the Anglo American Corporation, Old Mutual and Tongaat-Hulett;

c corporate executives such as Mike Rosholt of Barlow Rand and Anton Rupert of Rembrandt International.

8 These opposing arguments mirror a long-standing debate over the relationship between apartheid and capitalism.¹ What was of relevance to the task facing the Commission was that these contrasting accounts imply different notions of accountability. If, for example, one assumes that apartheid placed obstacles in the path of profitability, then business as a whole is cast more as a victim of the system than as a partner or collaborator. According to this construct, the essential question to be asked of business is why it did not do more to hasten the demise of apartheid - both through pressure on the state and through progressive actions at company or community levels. In other words, why did business not protest more loudly? Why did it not support the demands of black workers for wage increases and resist migratory labour practices?

9 Alternatively, the analysis of the ANC, COSATU and the SACP seems to imply that the involvement of business in the racial capitalism system of apartheid was such, and the benefits so great, that it would not have been in its interest to take issue with apartheid.

10 These questions are typically answered in two ways. The predominant approach is to point to instances where business objected to apartheid policies and in other ways promoted political change, and to highlight its contributions through social responsibility investments, its support for the Urban Foundation, the Small Business Development Corporation and various non-governmental organisations. The other approach is to point out that, by creating jobs and generating wealth, business improved living standards and created the conditions for successful political transition.

11 In addressing the question of business participation in human rights violations, most business submissions took the view that such abuses required active, deliberate participation by individuals. Thus, Old Mutual stated in its opening paragraph that:

In principle, the mandate of the Commission which focuses on gross violations of human rights would almost certainly exclude Old Mutual from having to make any submission.

12 This view was echoed in other submissions.