Manuel brands business 'cowards'

Trevor Manuel, head of South Africa’s government planning commission, described businesses as cowards on Thursday for giving in to unions and criticised labour for overusing strikes to push for social change.

The comments from Manuel could be a sign of readiness by the new administration to take a tough stand on increasingly vocal union allies of President Jacob Zuma who have been pushing for a policy shift to the left.

Manuel, who won the respect of markets for tight fiscal and monetary policies during his time as finance minister, said businesses were not working together as a counterweight to the unions.

“When anybody in the trade unions opens their mouth they run like hell. There’s no counterweight in society and if there’s no counterweight you can’t have outcomes that actually advance and progress,” said Manuel, head of the newly formed National Planning Commission.

“If we’re going to have cowards in business, we’re not going to get very far either.

You must have that counterweight if you want that progress,” he told a debate on South Africa at the World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town.

Despite demands from the Congress of South African Trade Unions and communists for policy changes, Zuma has stressed there will be no major change to policies seen as pro-business at a time South Africa is suffering its first recession in 17 years.

Manuel also criticised unions for misusing a right to strike to push for social change.

“If you blunt a tool it has no meaning,” he said. - Reuters