Browsing by Author "Lundall, Paul"

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    Employment, Wages and Skills Development: Firm-Specific Effects - Evidence from Two Firm Surveys in South Africa
    (2002-06) Bhorat, Haroon; Lundall, Paul
    The paper explores the inter and intra firm dynamics that are instrumental in shaping the determination of skills training within the South African labour market. The essential starting point is to show that the size of the enterprise and nature of the economic sector in which these enterprises operate, sets conditions on the regimes of enterprise training and skills development.
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    The erosion of apprenticeship training in South Africa's metal and engineering industry
    (1997) Lundall, Paul; Graaff, Johann; Gamble, Jeanne
    This thesis explores the decline and transmutation of the apprenticeship system in South Africa, specifically as it occurred in the metal and engineering industry. It proceeds to analyse the most basic and influential imperatives which have driven this process. On the side of capital, these imperatives were the inexorable motive for a profit driven industrial organisation and on the side of organised labour, the imperatives to protect skills, jobs and wages. The existence of the one set of imperatives presupposed the need to redefine the existence of the other set. These contradictory imperatives have shaped the trajectory of the apprenticeship system in South Africa. They were contradictory because the one was an impediment on the untrammelled extension of the other. However, as the imperative of profit maximisation gradually became the predominant consideration in the relationship, it began to exert greater pressure on the character of the apprenticeship system. Within the apprenticeship training system, the imperative of profit maximization prioritised price calculation as the dominant consideration by which decisions and trajectories were chartered. Since the state mediated the relationship between the various economic interests in society, its interventions merely curtailed a more rapid consolidation of the effects of a profit driven industrial organisational imperative, within the apprenticeship training system. The triumph of the profit maximization imperative, systematically eroded the system of apprenticeship training in the metal and engineering industry of South Africa. An institutional inertia within the South African state resulted in the manifestation of erosive effects within institutions of the state empowered with governing and managing human resources development. This institutional inertia within the state was an accompaniment to the broader erosion of the apprenticeship training system at the workplace.
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    Formalising the informal : the South African mini-bus taxi industry at the crossroads
    (2003) Majeke, Azola Cubekile; Lundall, Paul
    The South African Mini-Bus taxi industry is rooted within the informal sector yet much of its profitability and survival has been forged and become entrenched by cultivating a presence within the formal economy. This dualism has created many internal pressures for this industry and many of these pressures have been associated with violence. This paper considers all these multi-faceted dimensions but also calls for the sector's incorporation and regulation into the formal economy. The theoretical foundations of regulation are explored and it is established that a non-regulatory regime leads to decreased service quality and worsened driver-working conditions. Before the regulatory policies are further examined, the paper establishes the growth of this industry, paying particular attention to the violence that has been a key feature to the industry. This analysis spans the period 1987 to 2000 and highlights the various dynamics that have led to this violence. Political motivations are a key factor but one fundamental issue is that of overtraded routes that has numerous negative spill overs. This overtrading is a direct result of the industry lacking a proper regulatory framework in which to operate. The paper uses a survey to examine the prevailing working conditions that are built upon a system of informality and highlights the need for intervention to support the plight of drivers who are exploited. Thereafter the current government interventions in place are examined with a further analysis on the effects of minimum wages. The paper then concludes by raising critical issues that the government must address effectively for this intervention to be successful.
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    Sector Education Training Authorities and the Delivery of Training: Preliminary Remarks on the New Skills Dispensation in South Africa
    (2003-08) Lundall, Paul
    The workplace training dispensation that is evolving in South Africa represents a significant advance over previous initiatives in the country. While it is funded on the basis of payroll levies, the relatively sophisticated institutional structure in the administration of the system has caused delays in its set-up and operation.
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    Special Problems in Securing A Reduction in Working Hours: The Case of Security Workers
    (2002-07) Lundall, Paul
    The paper considers the complex process of introducing a regime of shorter working hours in the private security sector in South Africa. While the process of reducing the working hours of security workers in 1999 was bold, there is potential for real gains and losses to be derived from the process and this depends on the system and levels of compensation that are negotiated for the period of transition to the new schedules in working hours.