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Making A Code Work

How can a code such as the COSATU Code of Conduct on Investment be made to work? Here is what the COSATU Economic Task Force wrote in 1992:

• "A code has to be monitored or it becomes a meaningless gesture. But monitoring can be planned in ways that will empower workers and increase the availability of information about the investment decisions of companies.

  Monitoring should be entrusted to an independent body that consults broadly on a regular basis in assessing compliance with the code. The monitors should operate under a supervisory board that represents labour, community business and religious organisations.

  The monitoring could be arranged as follows: any company is eligible to sign the code. Signatories should complete an annual report, designed by the monitors, which will detail compliance with the code's elements. Monitors will review these reports with workers, their organisations and other concerned parties. Monitors will issue an annual assessment detailing company compliance with each category of the code. Signatories will pay an annual subscription (based on their wage bill or turnover). This monitoring will require start-up funding from both within and outside South Africa.

  The supervisory board, participating organisations and international partners will urge companies to become signatories.

  Unions might use the following methods to encourage companies to subscribe to the code: collective bargaining, preferential treatment in the company by union pension and provident funds, media campaigns, the preferential granting of government and local authority contracts to companies that sign the code.

  International organisations, including the international anti-apartheid solidarity movement, ethical investment funds, pension funds, religious bodies, etc., may seek compliance by shareholder resolutions, selective investment, public information and parallel corporate campaigns."

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