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I have the right to work, right?The basic right to work is a foundation to putting money into the households of the poor.
We have created constitutional rights to clean water, housing, sanitation and many other things, yet have not created the means to pay for it all.
The right to work, to do a job – any job – if you are low in education or skills, is a daily reward and signal of hope to self, families and communities.
Social grants are not enough to combat poverty nor can they dissipate the feeling of low self-worth by vast swathes of South Africans.
Our current dilemma lies in the pursuit by the unions in demanding “decent work”, with set basic wages countered in the debate against “basic jobs”.
In India, with an enlightened constitution for fair treatment and decent wages, there is a guarantee of the “right to work”. Under this umbrella is the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. It guarantees low-wage employment with a minimum of 100 days work per year for unskilled manual labour.
The work is rural, which creates better environments in which to live or to serve the local communities. Jobs are in land development, forestry, soil conservation, water supply and similar schemes. No machinery is allowed. Nor are there contractors. Each project is labour-intensive, with money directed straight to the labourers.
On a project-for-project basis, they are not time-sensitive or cost-effective methods. But on a social upliftment level, they work.
Our current choker is the demands by unions for a high basic wage. If we compare our rural workers’ collective demands, we find them already nearly three times as high as that which the Indian rural workers expect.
Could a scheme like India’s work in South Africa? We have the needs to develop the land and employ more people.
What we need, is leadership to find a way in which this could be accommodated within, or outside, the minimum wage demands. It could well contribute to the “five million jobs in 10 years” that the ANC has promised.
