|
August 2001
Dear Friends,
A few months ago, in the wee hours of the morning, Myrtle Witbooi
and a few of her colleagues chained themselves to the gates of
Parliament. Myrtle is the General Secretary of the South African
Domestic Services and Allied Workers Union (SADSAWU), the main
body representing an estimated 800,000 domestic workers across
the country. Their protest was timed to coincide with the consideration
of a major overhaul of the Unemployment Insurance Fund. Although
the South African government had promised to extend unemployment
benefits to domestic workers, it had submitted legislation that
perpetuated their exclusion, offering only the possibility of
inclusion at some indefinite future date.
Faced with imminent arrest, Myrtle and her colleagues ended their
protest—only to appear before Parliament’s Committee
on Labour a few hours later. The South African Council of Churches
(SACC) was also there to remind the government of its commitment
to protect this particularly vulnerable segment of the workforce,
which is almost entirely black and female. At the close of two
days of testimony, the chair of the Committee issued clear instructions
to the Department of Labour officials who had drafted the legislation.
They were to revise the bill to ensure the inclusion of domestic
workers within a definite and reasonable period and they were
to work directly with the organizations present to accommodate
the concerns they had raised.
It is not often that the SACC is part of a coalition that can
claim such a clear-cut victory. Over the past months, the SACC,
the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, SADSAWU, and a range of
other groups have been meeting with Department of Labour officials.
The negotiations have produced revised legislation that requires
the appointment of a special task team to develop mechanisms that
would bring domestic workers into the Unemployment Insurance Fund
within one year after the new law is enacted.
The SACC’s support for domestic workers is just one of the
ways churches are working to change national spending priorities
to address the needs of people systematically impoverished by
centuries of racially discriminatory policy. Although South Africa
is considered to be a "middle income" country, it has
the dubious distinction of being one of the most inequitable in
the world. More than 22 million South Africans, well over half
the population, live in poverty. Nearly all are black. A disproportionate
number are women. On average, they survive on R144, less than
$20, per person per month.
In February, the SACC joined the country’s main labour federation,
COSATU, and the coordinating body of nongovernmental organizations,
SANGOCO, to launch a "People’s Budget." The People’s
Budget is intended to challenge the economic assumptions underlying
the national budget and to identify ways to make more money available
for spending on poverty alleviation, job creation, and social
investment. It also proposes a handful of key programs that could
have an immediate impact on the living standards of poor people.
One of its recommendations is the introduction of a Basic Income
Grant, a simple idea that has been adopted in Brazil and has generated
growing interest across Europe. It consists of a monthly state
grant of R100 (about $13) that would be paid to every person in
South Africa regardless of age, gender, or income.
In a nation where one-fifth of the population spends, on average,
less than R50 a month on food, an extra R100 per month would significantly
improve people’s ability to survive with dignity. Larger
households, which also tend to be poorer, would stand to benefit
most from the grant, since everyone in the household would be
eligible to receive it. The grant would likely stimulate a widespread
increase in consumer spending, most of which would go towards
food, clothing, and improvements to shelter—mostly local
products. This would in turn act as a stimulus to local economies,
creating new employment opportunities. Unlike means-tested welfare
payments, a universal Basic Income Grant would not discourage
recipients from looking for work or initiating their own enterprises
to improve their incomes.
The South African government already offers some social assistance
grants, including pensions of about $70 per month for elderly
people and a child support grant of about $15 a month for children
under seven. However, about two-thirds of those in South Africa
living below the poverty line do not have access to any of the
existing grants.
The primary drawback of the grant is, of course, the expense.
If all South Africans—even the wealthy—took advantage
of the grant, it is likely to cost as much as R50 billion a year,
just over 20% of the current national budget and slightly more
than the country currently spends each year on servicing its debts.
However, most proposals for the grant envision that about half
of the cost would be recovered through additional taxation. This
would mean that the grant would also become an important tool
for redistributing wealth within the country. As the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission noted in it report, such a broad-based
and visible contribution to economic justice is vital to the stability
of South Africa’s democracy and the achievement of genuine
national reconciliation.
South Africa’s new constitution guarantees all South Africans
a right to basic social security and imposes an obligation on
the state to make continual progress toward the realization of
that right. Last year, the government appointed a special commission
to consider how best to fulfil its obligation. The commission
received a number of submissions from church organizations, human
rights groups, and economists making practical proposals for the
introduction of a basic income grant. As the commission prepares
to present its recommendations to the government, the question
will be: Can this emerging coalition of civil society organizations
generate the political will to take such a bold step in the interests
of South Africa’s poorest households?
Sincerely,
Doug Tilton
The 2001 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 47
|
