SAMA EXTRA ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING

The Board of Directors of SAMA has noted a variety of responses to its resolution to disestablish the Trade Union component of SAMA, directed to SAMA National Councillors, appearing on social media, and in the press. As promised in last week’s communique, we would like to provide additional information that we trust will place the matter in perspective and further explain the background to the resolution and its implications. This is done to avoid misinterpretation of the facts.

SAMA has been registered as a trade union in 1996, an action necessitated by legislative changes in labour law following the enactment of the Constitution of South Africa. Prior to 1996, and up until February 2013, the trade union function within SAMA has been performed by a SAMA membership committee, the Committee for Public Service Doctors (CPSD). In 2013 the CPSD was rebranded as a Trade Union National Executive Committee (NEC) in an effort to enhance visibility and increase functionality for SAMA’s employed members under the label of being a “trade union”. The NEC remained a membership committee of the SAMA structure, subject to the rules and regulations of the company and governed under the oversight of the SAMA Board of Directors.

The expectation was that, following the formal “launch” of the SAMA Trade Union in March 2013 and supported by a full-time General Secretary, structures were to be populated comprising institutional, branch, provincial and national levels. The intention was of better representation of employed doctors’ issues and that the many challenges facing this category of doctor would be more effectively addressed.

Over the following three years, however, this vision was not effectively realised. The Trade Union’s lack of proper functioning in the interests of SAMA’s employed members has become a major risk to the Association and an impediment to achieving the very objectives that it was intended to achieve.

An unintended consequence of the rebranding as a “trade union” was the creation of numerous “leadership” positions at provincial and national level which were considered politically strategic and which have provided politically-ambitious members with platforms to engage with political and labour leadership at provincial and national levels. While it was anticipated that these platforms would be used to serve the interests of membership and advance the interests of employed doctors in general, they have in reality unfortunately become vehicles for individual members to further their own political aspirations and careers, with significant neglect and compromise of their responsibilities to SAMA members. Over a period of time, the structures have been infiltrated and ultimately dominated by individuals who have spent most of the past year:

- demanding more and more independence from SAMA, culminating in demands for a complete split from SAMA;

- refusing to be subjected to the corporate governance policies, financial controls and auditing processes of SAMA;

- refusing to be subjected to the management and administrative processes of SAMA;

- demanding extensive resources from SAMA while demonstrating minimal, if any, benefit derived from the utilisation of such resources;

- demanding division of the assets of SAMA, with assets had to be transferred to the Trade Union to be dealt with under the exclusive control of Trade Union officials, notwithstanding the fact that the assets of a non-profit company do not belong to its members;

- utilising the resources of SAMA intended for representation of its members’ interests to engage with political and labour leadership at provincial and national levels, with little or no demonstrable positive contribution to actual membership representation;

- adopting political positions on behalf of SAMA without being mandated to do so:

- repeatedly misleading the Board of Directors in respect of the true position and activities of the Trade Union, and in turn misrepresenting the position of the Board of Directors to the structures of the Trade Union.

The Trade Union has, within SAMA, become resistant to any form of proper governance or control implemented and regulated by the corporate governance structures of SAMA to ensure responsibility and accountability to its members in terms of legislative prescripts.

Examples of misinformation that has been, or is currently being disseminated by some of the former Trade Union structures, include:

- The Trade Union is an independent structure and is not answerable or accountable to the Board of Directors of SAMA

Fact: the TU is defined in the founding documents of SAMA as a membership committee which has the same standing within SAMA as the other two membership committees, namely the General Practitioners Private Practice and Specialists Private Practice Committees.

- The Trade Union is not represented on the Board of Directors of SAMA

Fact: There are positions for three TU members on the Board of Directors, as well as a standing invitation to the General Secretary to attend and participate in every meeting of the Board of Directors, the same courtesy as extended to the Head of the Private Practice Department in SAMA. Currently there are two members of the former Trade Union NEC sitting on the Board of Directors, in addition to the General Secretary. The affiliation of Board positions is also balanced between private practice and employed doctors.

- The Trade Union is constantly victimised/suppressed/oppressed/undermined by the Board of Directors of SAMA

Fact: The Board of Directors has repeatedly expressed its commitment to support the representative activities of the Trade Union and issued directives to various structures of SAMA to effect this. The obstruction to the implementation of intended projects and intended strategies of the Trade Union has originated from within the Trade Union itself, despite maximal support from the Board.

- The TU is constantly inadequately supported by SAMA via its Head Office and its Branches

Fact: Audited reports revealed that resource allocation to the former Trade Union structures has been disproportionately higher than that allocated to the private practice components of SAMA, relative to membership. There has been an element of cross-subsidy of Trade Union activities by the private sector membership which was anticipated to equilibrate once the TU functionality and membership improved, whereas these have actually declined.

- The Labour Relations Act (LRA) requires for trade union structures to be “independent”, hence the ongoing demands for the SAMA Trade Union to be independent of SAMA, with further apportionment of SAMA resources to the SAMA Trade Union.

Fact: Section 95 (2) of the LRA defines the specified independence as “(a) it is not under the direct or indirect control of any employer or employers' organisation; and (b) it is free of any interference or influence of any kind from any employer or employers' organisation.” SAMA is neither an employer of doctors nor a doctor employers’ organisation and therefore the alleged “independence” requirement is unsubstantiated.

- The Trade Union was never given its own budget to manage, despite subscriptions being collected from employed doctors under the guise of SAMA being a union.

Fact: The budget allocation to TU activities by SAMA has vastly exceeded the trade union subscriptions collected from employed doctors. The number of employed SAMA members would not allow for a functional division if only these contributions were to be relied upon.

From a structural point of view, the burden placed on the Trade Union by its own constitution requires properly constituted representation at every institution (workplace), branch and province, as well as in the National Executive Committee (NEC), in order for it to be regarded as properly established. This is a practical impossibility and there has never been any structure of the Trade Union at any level, (branch structures, PEC’s or the NEC) which is properly constituted in terms of its own constitution. In addition, the national and provincial executive committees (PEC’s) have been constituted haphazardly, with little or no grassroots or institutional involvement, and with extensive appointments under unconstitutional and/or irregular circumstances. It is widely held that the processes of appointment of many Trade Union officials has been conducted in such a manner as to provide specific individuals with the opportunity to further their personal aims with little regard for membership interests.

The achievements that SAMA has realised since the rebranding of its Trade Union component have been largely from the activities of its industrial relations and collective bargaining units (which are permanent components of SAMA head office and function independently of the TU structures), and those SAMA branches which perform labour work directly, which had been doing so before the launch of the envisaged Trade Union structures. The TU NEC and PEC’s have minimally added to these achievements, and any such achievements have been overshadowed by the legal and reputational risk that these structures have come to pose to a unified Association.

The Board of Directors has been actively attempting to resolve these critical issues with the Trade Union since 2014, including extensive correspondence, engagement and discussion with the former Trade Union NEC, multiple strategic planning sessions including one specifically dedicated to resolving the dysfunction within the Trade Union structures and a specific task team set up within the Trade Union to resolve its own issues. Resolution was never reached. The Board resolved to maintain the functions of the Trade Union under a committee of the Board of Directors as early as September 2015. However, some of the former Trade Union NEC, renounced this resolution and continued to demand a split from SAMA.

Eventually, after exhaustive discussions at Board and Executive Committee levels, a detailed report was tabled outlining the legal options that the Board had to consider and the legal implications of the continued existence of a dysfunctional Trade Union structure. After extensive discussions, members of the Board concluded that the ongoing risk to the stability of the Association was untenable, and that the Association required decisive protection from attempts to destabilise it. The resolution to disestablish the Trade Union was then tabled, robustly discussed, and adopted at a board meeting in February 2016.

SAMA has ten registered directors and two Acting Directors (following the resignation of two previous directors). These acting directors are allowed full director status and entitled to vote at board meetings in terms of the Company Rules, until the next elective National Council meeting in 2017. The board meeting was quorate (all twelve directors were present) and properly constituted to proceed with business. Eleven of the directors voted in favour of the resolution, and one of the acting directors against the resolution. The resolution was therefore carried by an overwhelming majority. It is common cause that any director at a board meeting may move or second a proposed resolution and all proceedings at the board meeting, including the voting process, were conducted properly. SAMA board members were all elected in terms of the new MOI and Rules in May 2014. Their terms of service thus started in May 2014, and all of them have served less than three years in their current positions.

Implications for future representation of employed doctors’ issues by SAMA:

The disestablishment of the Trade Union component of SAMA is by no means intended to diminish SAMA’s representation of the interests of employed doctors in any way, manner or form, but rather to enhance this crucial function. The abolishment of positions at provincial and national level, that have provided platforms to politically-ambitious members to utilise SAMA resources for personal advancement, will allow these individuals to pursue these ambitions outside of SAMA, while allowing the work of employed doctor representation to be performed by those members who are genuinely dedicated to this cause. The responsibility of the committee established to take over these representative functions is envisaged to include all the functions of the former Trade Union component, with the additional aims of developing grassroots representation at institutional and branch levels, develop labour/industrial relations training programmes for employed doctors, and represent employed doctors interests on important issues such as commuted overtime, RWOPS, OSD implementation, EPMDS/performance appraisal issues, working conditions, resource and infrastructure issues.

With regard to labour legislation, SAMA remains registered with the Registrar of Labour as a trade union. In this regard the necessary engagement with the Registrar of Labour forms part of the tasks of the Interim Committee appointed to evaluate and steer a process to ensure that the best interests of all SAMA members are at all times paramount.

It must also be kept in mind that SAMA has 20 branches country-wide, and that the service of either private or public members’ interests are fully facilitated in rural and city areas by these branches. All branch councils are elected democratically and branch membership include both public and private sector members, ensuring adequate representation of employed doctors on branch councils.
In other words, it is envisaged that the new committee will implement the actions and interventions that had been expected to implement over the past few years.

The Board of Directors of SAMA reassures its membership, both in private practice and employed, that it is fully committed to serving the interests of all of its membership, and that the restructuring of its model of employed doctor representation will result in improved service to this important membership component.

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