Get to the truth of it
COMMENT: Spin – what can be called bending facts to suit your own purposes – is no longer confined to governments and large commercial organisations, writes MIke Mundy.
In this respect it was interesting to this observer to see statements made by a number of port unions recently taken up enthusiastically by the industry media and quoted comprehensively to their respective readerships. With due respect to the many excellent industry commentators in our industry, they should, however, perhaps have been a little more careful in facilitating the firing of union ‘bullets.’
Let’s make no mistake today’s port unions know how to ‘spin’ just as well as any other organisation with a point to make. They have become well versed in assembling an armoury of public relations and lobbying tools as well as charm offensives that can disarm even the hardened journalist let alone relative newcomers to the ‘pen.’
Journalists can be guilty of living in a space somewhere between reality and a world of ideals. Given this, when it comes to a veteran union man banging the drum with a point of view masked in alleged injustices or matters of principle then this can quickly become a nectar acceptable to the journalistic palette.
Witness a simple test of this seen several times recently. Union A or Union B has made disparaging remarks about Company 1 or Company 2 setting up in a new location because they have “a record of labour disputes” and/or “the wrong approach to hiring labour”. Precisely these sort of remarks were taken at face value in various industry media and widely circulated, but are they correct?
What actually constitutes a’ record of labour disputes’: just one or two disputes and/or disputes that have been initiated by union members? Is it the ‘wrong approach’ because it is not an approach that has been adopted before? If so, what makes it wrong; is its only crime that it is new?
There needs to be more analysis of such statements and whether they truly add up. The current ongoing strike at the South African port of Ngqura has been accused of being many things including: “early preparation for the violent overthrow of the government in 2019; proof that the ANC is treating a parastatal like a political chess piece, the extension of a strike in the platinum sector” and “a simple fight about worker rights”. This highlights the complexity of management labour conflict points and how it is vitally important to fathom what the real key issues and facts are behind them. It is rarely what is seen on the surface.