What was the point of it all?

Where are the winners? Can anyone please direct me to any party which emerged a winner from the 10-day long truck driver's strike that is reported to have cost the industry and workers around R700 million in lost revenue and wages. It's some time since the strike ended and I'm still battling to see a winner? What I have seen are out-of-pocket drivers having to apply for company loans to make up the shortfalls incurred during the strike when they received no pay. I've seen companies having to try make up losses in turnover that can never really be recovered. I've seen drivers who were not in the strike but who were caught in the 'cross-fire' having to nurse bruised heads and ribs. I've seen companies having to pay for damage repairs to their trucks - mainly windscreens - that were vandalized. I've seen union leaders losing credibility with their members after being labeled sell-outs when they emerged from the drawn-out negotiations with what they perceived as a 'victorious' outcome. Worst of all, I've seen working conditions remain unchanged and which, without doubt, will lead to even more trouble in the future. As for winners, I have seen none. So what was the point of the strike? What was the blinking point of it all?

When agreement was eventually reached - and this only after the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration stepped in - one newspaper report quoted Nico Badenhorst, chief executive of the Road Freight Employers' Association (RFEA) as saying: "The RFEA believes the increase balances the interests of both parties and we look forward to a healthy and productive relationship with the unions in future." You want my gut feel. There's little chance of that happening and anyway, what is needed is not a healthy and productive relationship between the RFEA and the unions. More 'healthy' would be a healthy and productive relationship between the management of individual transport companies and their drivers. That is the route to go from hereon in. Why do I say this? 

For a start, if I was a manager or owner of a transport company employing drivers, I would rather have a good relationship with my drivers than with the unions. This is especially so given that the drivers pelted the union leaders with mielie-cobs when they emerged from the negotiating chambers at the National Bargaining Council to declare what they perceived as a victory. The drivers didn't see it as such. They regarded it as a sell-out with one driver I met on the road some time afterwards saying: "Aie. It was a waste of time. We achieved nothing." It was around 10.00 pm on a Friday night and he was back in his cab driving down to Durban. While Badenhorst and the unions might have seen the increase as "balancing the interests of both parties", this driver - and many of his colleagues - didn't see it that way. They saw the total strike and negotiations as a 'waste of time".

And here's another problem I have. On the union side, five unions were represented with the main one getting the spotlight being SATAWU. Sure this represents a huge number of truck drivers but not all drivers or industry sectors are represented here. As for the employers, they were represented by the RFEA which represents only the members of the Road Freight Association. As we pointed out in an article in our November edition, the RFA is in no ways a body which can be regarded as representing the industry as a whole. It is not even representative of the entire 'long haul' sector from where it draws its main membership base. So the question I ask is: Although it was portrayed as a national industry-wide strike, the people around the bargaining table - both employer and employee representatives - cannot claim national representation of the trucking industry as a whole. The driver of the tipper truck who got nailed in Braamfontein (see story inside starting page 20) was not represented in that negotiating room. He knew nothing about the strike. So what are we talking here in terms of representation? The perception conveyed to the country - and it was not dispelled by any of the negotiating parties - is that the country's entire trucking industry of employers and drivers were involved in this strike. That's nonsense. They were not. That sort of irks me.

But here's my real reason for advocating going the management/driver route of negotiation. While talking to drivers on the lawns of the Beyers Naude Square on the one strike day I mingled with them, one asked me - and I quote verbatim: "How do we get our managers to listen to us without us having to go on strike? I don't want to be here. I am not earning any money while I'm here and I have kids to feed. But how do we get to talk to them. They chase us away when we go to them. They don't want to talk to us so we have to do this. We don't want to but we have to." His colleagues, who were sitting around listening to our conversation, nodded their heads in agreement. Wow! That's a terrible indictment against management. And listen - I'm not making this up. I have the notes and a picture of the man who said that to me. The point here is that drivers are willing to talk without going on strike. They just need managers who are prepared to listen to them. And it's not just all about wages. A 10% increase (however it was made up) might have been achieved but nothing has changed in terms of working conditions - and there is tremendous disgruntlement among drivers about these conditions. If I were a manager, I'd want to get to grips with these complaints rather than just know I'm going ahead with an increase that "balances the interests of both parties". While the surface of the strike was about wages, skim the wage issue off the surface and you will find a brew that is starting to bubble and is sure to heat up to the point where it is going to boil over and spill its contents all over the interest of all parties.

In 2003, FleetWatch published a book titled 'You and Your Driver'. It was stated in the introduction that the book 'advocates a new era of dynamic relationships between drivers and their managers where both parties work in partnership to achieve common goals. By doing so, the driver and manager are linked as one in the chain of transport'. To achieve this, we still have a long way to go for in my humble opinion, never has the chasm between management and drivers been so wide. This gap needs to be bridged and this can only be done through managers and drivers sitting around a table and talking. Don't leave your relationship with your drivers in the hands of the RFEA and the unions to address once a year. There is a lot more to drivers than just wages - and they want to talk to you about it. Open your door and let them in.

Patrick O'Leary
Managing Editor