Cosatu statement on its submission on the Green Paper
on E-commerce

COSATU has submitted its views on the E-Commerce
Green Paper, which examines issues around the growth
of information and communications technologies (ICTs)
in the economy.

The federation is concerned at the failure of what was
purported to be a participatory process that was
supposed to be “consultative, transparent and
[balancing] the interests of the broader spectrum of
stakeholder (sic)”. From the outset there was an
overwhelming bias in favour of legal, contractual and
business issues, rather than issues of concern to
organised labour, reflected even in the sub-title,
"Making it your Business”.

There was no focus upon workplace issues - jobs,
working conditions, skills. Apart from one paragraph on
jobs, the paper pays scant attention to the impact of e-
commerce on the lives and livelihoods of workers, trade
unions, the workplace, job losses and job creation.

Most of the COSATU’s comments and inputs were excised
from the final draft or vitiated in their presentation. In
consequence this is a Green Paper less remarkable for
what it addresses than for what it ignores or downplays -
notably the potential negative impacts of e-commerce. If
there is no any understanding or appreciating of these,
policies to “maximise the benefits” are likely to be one-sided
and ineffectual.

The Green Paper says nothing on how and where e-
commerce can contribute to economic growth and social
development. Although it speaks of government
“participation”, the Green Paper’s vision of government’s role
within e-commerce is that of neo-liberal facilitator,
“developing the enabling conditions for growth of e-commerce
by preventing and removing barriers”.

Government’s interventions must go beyond "facilitating". It
must provide vision, leadership and direction, and. where
necessary, regulation against negative impacts, resolve
conflicts of interest, protect vulnerable individuals and groups,
and promote desirable social outcomes.

Most successful ICT developments have been as a
consequence of government playing a strategic role in
promoting and developing the sector. Ireland’s success owes
less to a free-market minimalist approach, than to strategic
state intervention to upgrade the industry.

COSATU rejects the Green Paper’s neo-liberal conception
that individual countries are expected to bow to the demands
of the dominant capitalist countries and companies, rather than
pursue a development path suited to their people’ needs.
More attention should be given to protecting the needs of
developing countries, including the protection of indigenous
knowledge and our bio-diversity heritage.

The Green Paper fails to address workers’ intellectual
property. Workers, from musicians to computer
programmers, need to protect their rights and ensure they are
adequately remunerated, through regulation or via collective
bargaining.

The Green Paper also fails to address specifically any of the
issues relating workplace surveillance and employees’ rights to
privacy and their rights to organise via e-commerce, including
communication with the union of their choice. These need to
be protected.
COSATU supports effective protection of workers, either
through appropriate legislation and regulation or subject to
negotiated codes of conduct. .

None of the issues raised by labour through the working
group in relation to labour market issues have survived in its
original form. For example, the complex and controversial
questions of job losses, job retention and job creation need
considerably more attention than the single paragraph they are
accorded.

The job destroying-impact of ICTs, and by extension that of e-
commerce, is the subject of extensive and detailed literature
and cannot be lightly swept under the carpet with bland calls
for more “research” and platitudes about that new jobs for
‘infomediaries’ being created.

COSATU reiterates its call for job guarantees for those in
existing employment, a sustained onslaught to up-skill the
workforce, and effective retraining and redeployment
schemes, with the safety net of a social plan as the measure of
last resort.

The Green Paper gives little consideration of the critical
barriers of access, literacy, and language. Unless these are
addressed, e-government will mean only ‘elite government’.
This is further compounded by the Green Paper’s
characterisation of citizens as "customers" or "consumers"
rather than as active participants whose basic needs have to
be met in the context of South Africa’s ongoing
democratisation.

It is imperative that South Africa develops a clear information
society policy framework, underpinned by clear policies and
intervention strategies for e-commerce and that concrete
measures are implemented to ensure that e-commerce
develops in a socially desirable way.

COSATU has sought to table the issues of concern to our
constituency, the workers of South Africa, with the hope of
making the information economy a satisfactory environment in
which to live and work.

For the full submission, please visit our website on
http://www.cosatu.org.za/docs/2001/ecommgp.htm

For further information please phone:
Fiona Tregenna, Parliamentary Office, on 021 461 3835 or
Charley Lewis, I T Department, on 011 339 4911

Siphiwe Mgcina
COSATU Spokesperson

[email protected]
082-821-7456
339-4911