With Neasa, fear is the key to success
Never under-estimate the power of the
negative
Date: 27 October 2017
Dear Stakeholder
By now you will no doubt have had at least one of NEASA’s ever-wailing newsletters
clogging your in-box since SEIFSA member Associations successfully concluded a three-year
Settlement Agreement with all the industry trade unions in August. Those of us concerned
about certainty and stability in the metals and engineering sector were pleased that such
a settlement could be reached without even a single day lost to industrial action. After all,
this is only the fourth three-year Agreement in SEIFSA’s 74-year history and the very first
one concluded without industrial action in the past 10 years.
In its own eyes, NEASA has a special understanding of the dynamics of the metals and
engineering industries. Its boring refrain is both simple and simplistic: “All our economic
pain comes from SEIFSA”.
The organisation is simply incapable of advancing its agenda, such as it is, without reference
to SEIFSA. It is as if SEIFSA is its currency.
institutions and the ideals of fair, decent and
collegial engagement.
NEASA’s biggest failing is that it usually knows
roughly what it is against, but has absolutely
no credible positive programme to define and
realise concrete policy objectives.
NEASA claims to know all the ills that befall
our industry, routinely bemoaning the role of
SEIFSA, the trade unions, the Bargaining Council,
Government and big business. The organisation
excels at pointing fingers at anyone and everyone
– exce pt for itself! In our view, no organisation
could possibly be more guilty of hypocrisy, short-
sightedness and opportunism in equal measure.
There is little wonder, then, that when one objectively surveys almost twenty (20) years
of NEASA’s participation on the Metals and Engineering Industries Bargaining Council, the
only unbroken thread that can be discerned from its participation is its extraordinary and
spectacular record of not having achieved a single thing for its constituency.
Zero. Zilch. Nada. Niks.
Given that, despite its ever shrill voice and the insults routinely hurled at all and sundry,
NEASA has failed to secure any of its key objectives over the years, surely it is time for a
rethink? In particular, NEASA needs explicitly to provide substance to its claims, to explain
many of its bizarre actions and to inform all sobre-minded South Africans exactly what it
would like SEIFSA, industry and other stakeholders to buy into and how its goals can be
accomplished practically. In other words, let’s get to see the organisation’s vision for the
future.
It is easy to criticize, to engage in penny-pinching and to throw barbs, but doing so without
advancing any reasonable and constructive alternative is intellectually bankrupt.
It is easy to criticize, to
engage in penny-pinching
and to throw barbs, but
doing so without advancing
any reasonable and
constructive alternative is
intellectually bankrupt.
Instead of distancing itself from the Bargaining Council, the unions and industry role
players, NEASA needs to decide where it stands on the collective bargaining front, industry
SEIFSA AT 75 - SPECIAL COMMEMORATIVE MAGAZINE
58