Driving to the office on Friday last – newspaper deadlines do not take holidays into account – the morning talk show on SAfm was dealing with public holidays, and notably the unscheduled one. As usual, some callers were protagonists, other antagonists and still others whose extreme views must be dismissed as drivel. One man, who took the opportunity to vent his reactionary spleen on Mbeki and the government, quickly got to the Chinese and how they are poised to take over the economy of the world. While it has to be conceded that it is the Chinese commitment to productivity which may in the end enable this to happen, the point made had little to do with the topic under discussion. Talk radio has much to recommend it, but it is a distinct weakness that it sometimes allows loonies to air in public all their numerous prejudices and frustrations.
There were suggestions that all public holidays should occur on a Monday or Friday so as to prevent disruption of the working week. This argument was advanced by Business many years ago when there was considerable debate about public holidays and when they should occur. I remember that Workers’ Day was a particular point of contention. Business argued that this should fall on the closest Monday or Friday to May 1st, but unions would have none of it. Mayday is commemorated throughout the world, they argued, and it had to be celebrated here. Many of those who couldn’t understand this viewpoint might have been the first to object were Christmas Day moved to the nearest Monday or Friday to the 25th of December. To passionate unionist workers, their day holds as much significance as Christmas Day does to Christians. Similarly, those who strove to liberate this country and eventually succeeded in doing so, would not agree to the importance of Freedom Day being subverted by it becoming a movable feast.
It is interesting that public holidays seem to reveal more of our country’s cultural differences than many other aspects of our lives. Let’s face it, we may complain about them when we wear our business hats, but we enjoy them anyway and extended weekends are great for family activity and getting away outside of the school holiday periods. For many workers, these are not holiday opportunities, but, rather, days on which they do not need to rise before the sun and travel on a taxi, bus or train to work. They are also community days, when communities are able to gather together, often to celebrate the significance of the day. White people, at least those who are English-speaking, are not inclined to give thought to the origin of the holiday, except on those days that are part of the Christian calendar. In highlighting public holidays, as it does, government at national and provincial levels recognises that this is what the majority of people want – large gatherings at which political leaders speak to them. Public holidays are certainly not days off for leaders in government. And they have an importance to some people that others cannot comprehend. In my view, for example, Youth Day is a most appropriate day on which to stage the Comrades Marathon, but I must respect those who believe, contrary to me, that the staging of such an event detracts from the real meaning of the holiday.
Last week was almost a write-off as far as business is concerned. The costs of continuing with production at increased wage rates on three days will have strained all but the wealthiest of companies and many might have reasoned that it was better to close. I was in Johannesburg on Tuesday when I found the traffic at peak times to be half what it normally is and the airport almost eerily quiet. This was not a scheduled holiday, but it was very clear that many in business, and in school I suspect, had taken two extra days off and headed for the coast.
We like our leisure too much to take on the Asians, I fear. Our Christmas breaks seem to me to get longer every year with the festivities starting earlier in December and working people taking longer to recover when they return in January. To the bosses and workers of China and India this downtime cannot be afforded, it seems, as they strive to sustain their miraculous economic growth rates. It is part of the work ethic to keep at it. While our employers often complain about low levels of productivity, it is not fair to blame Labour for this state of affairs. There are too many instances which reveal that we are not, by national character, an optimally productive country.
Andrew Layman: PCB CEO
This article appeared in The Mercury on the 7 May 2008
