Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council 29 September 2000
Master of Ceremonies,
Honourable Mayor Mogase,
Everyone from the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council,
I welcome the opportunity to address you this morning at this important seminar and thank you for this invitation. I hope that your deliberations during the day will increase our awareness and willingness in all spheres of government to act urgently and constructively to address issues of HIV/AIDS in the workplace. This is a huge challenge to us all and I am particularly pleased that local government is behind this initiative here today. I do believe this is where much of our efforts should be directed.
Why do we as employers need to take HIV/AIDS seriously? Why do we need to urgently pay attention to workplace policy and programmes? I believe the answer lies in the fact that the present impacts of HIV/AIDS on finance, service delivery, and each employee, are wide-spread and extremely serious. These impacts will increase as HIV spreads. We are therefore looking at escalating impacts. If we respond now we have an opportunity to manage the impacts effectively and perhaps even reverse some of these over time. If we 'wait and see', thinking that this may not be so bad, or this might affect others but not us, then I believe we, as well as our employees, will face disaster.
The impact of HIV/AIDS in our workplaces throughout South Africa has to be taken seriously. We have an obligation to our employees and their families, we have an obligation to our country, and perhaps if that does not motivate us, we can consider that from a purely economic point of view we will face serious consequences if we choose not to recognise the serious nature of this pandemic.
There appears therefore to be general agreements among a range of experts that some of the impacts we are talking about are:
These are matters which we probably already know and to which we have given some thought. What strikes one though is the potential impact created by the combination of these various factors, the complexity and enormity of what managers will face each day, if they are not already doing so. These factors, and we could probably add more, make for good reason to act with urgency, yet with a policy and programme which facilitates a sufficiently intense and comprehensive response.
I'd like to suggest that an essential aspect of any workplace policy and programme will be its capacity to be fully inter-sectoral in nature. One of the important aspects of learning which I think is shaping our thinking as a country and which should increase our awareness as employers, is a growing awareness that HIV/AIDS is far more than a health issue. We have to realise that HIV/AIDS is in fact a development issue for our country, for our employees, for our organisations. It impacts on every aspect of individual, family, community and society. Unlike in previous decades where much of the focus was on health, there is now a concerted effort to approach HIV/AIDS holistically. To recognise that HIV/AIDS is indeed a social, emotional, financial, educational and political issue. It is that recognition that is, and should be, shaping our response. If these multiple impacts on the country are not recognised and managed, we will damage our country irretrievably. The same will happen if we neglect to recognise and respond to the multiple impacts in our workplaces.
This year the DG of DPSA and I initiated a major process which is being led from within my ministry and department, aimed at assessing the impact of HIV/AIDS on the public service and acting to mitigate that impact. As employers of 1.1 million people, we have realised (perhaps a little late) that service delivery in the public service will be severely affected by HIV/AIDS unless we are willing and able to do something substantial about this as urgently as possible.
We recognise the need to urgently initiate and then continue a comprehensive programme in the public service.
A critical component of the response to HIV/AIDS in the public service will be the capacity building and strengthening of managers. I believe that we need all managers everywhere (including in our local governments), to not only be 'on board', but to provide strong leadership in the fight against AIDS. Managers should know how to manage the various impacts among their staff and should be powerful role-models with regard to prevention, as well as powerful supports for those infected. That managers might know about AIDS and be able to quote statistics is not sufficiently helpful. They have to know about HIV/AIDS as it applies in THEIR workplace, they have to know and understand those who are infected in THEIR workplace, and they need to take a hands on approach to developing policy and managing workplace programmes.
Our Impact Study is due for completion in the next few weeks and at some stage in the next month we hope to make some of the data available to the public. The study has focussed on the demographic impacts, our employment framework and capacity, an audit of employer benefits, and impact on service delivery. In addition we have completed a rapid assessment of workplace policies in the public service, and studied a number of the private sector initiatives, which have been, and are, successful. Some of the information we will have as a result will include;
Once we have examined all the facts and issues it is our intention to design and implement with various partners, a number of responsive activities or programmes. One of these will be a comprehensive workplace policy and practice standards, and in relation to this, we hope to facilitate that the public service at national and provincial levels establish or strengthen meaningful workplace programmes.
Eskom is known for its early and effect response to HIV/AIDS in the workplace. Already in 1995 they established an AIDS project to plan for the impact of the epidemic on Eskom's resources and set up comprehensive programmes aimed at prevention and containment of the infection. I particularly like what they indicated as their rationale for setting up the project. They say (in their workplace programme) "The project is regarded as an investment in employees and productivity; it is a tool to meet Eskom's business objective." I'd like to suggest that that viewpoint or rationale is one which we could all strive towards sharing. We do indeed need to invest in people, and certainly, we in the public service need, for the sake of all South African's, to meet our business objectives, which in this case amounts to quality service delivery. If we were to respond to HIV/AIDS in the workplace with those attitudes, I believe it would take us away from the realm of agonising over statistics and talking about strategies, to the level at which HIV/AIDS is felt most keenly by our employees - the workplace.
By the early part of 2001, it is my hope that we in the Public Service will have initiated the process a sound workplace policy and practice which might include ways in which we regularly monitor seroprevalence and ensure prevention programmes, education and training for all public servants (with a particular focus on peer-education), effective human resource management, and various services such as voluntary testing and counselling, and bereavement counselling and support. There are many experts on these matters and we will be consulting with those and with our public servants themselves as we seek to map out a pathway for the public service in spite of the progression of AIDS. I believe that effectively managing HIV/AIDS in the workplace depends on well-informed and responsible managers, as well as sound partnerships and team work with experts, key stakeholders and organised Labour Unions, from whom we can learn.
Finally I want to say that I believe strongly that one 'expert' group from whom we should all be learning, are those who are already living with AIDS. We hope that within the public service we can eventually create an environment and climate in which people living with AIDS can be comfortable disclosing their status as per their choice, can be supported and strengthened, and can play an important role in assisting and educating their colleagues.
I wish you well in your discussions and trust that this will be a further positive step in the partnership against AIDS in South Africa and in the Metropolitan Council's own programmes to this end.