Code of Conduct for Australian companies with interests in the Republic of South Africa

Item

Title

Code of Conduct for Australian companies with interests in the Republic of South Africa

Date Issued

Mar-87

Description

This is the first report under the voluntary Code of Conduct for Australian companies in South Africa. It marks Australia's entry into an area of monitoring and public reporting where the United States of America, the European Community (particularly the United Kingdom) and Canada have had Codes of Conduct since 1976 to 1978. Each of the countries concerned has companies with investment in South Africa and a physical presence there - through subsidiaries that operate as part of South African industry and that employ South African workers, including black workers. The Codes are intended to secure that companies from outside South Africa do not, when employing non-white (and particularly black) workers in South Africa, exploit the apartheid system. On the contrary, the objective is to work towards the elimination of discrimination at the industrial level - in pay rates, opportunities and otherwise - and at the same time to try to imp rove the position of the employees outside the work place. Those who press for stronger sanctions against South Africa and for active disinvestment policies criticise the Codes as weak palliatives for apartheid. In past years that might have been charged more forcibly. Today the existence of the Codes does not seem to be affecting decisions on sanctions. And the converse also seems to be true; with the sanctions that are presently operating the Codes continue to operate. Of course, when companies do disinvest, the Codes have fewer companies to cover and could eventually wither on that account. To the extent, therefore, that the Codes operate on the fact of foreign companies being in South Africa, they could be thought inconsistent with any policy of rapid disinvestment. However, there are at present no such policies operating at the level of Governments. A question arising from that is whether foreign companies, if they do remain in South Africa, should be subject to Codes and to reports back home as to their conduct, it being recognised that those reports, depending on their content and their reception, may either quieten or stir pressures for further disinvestment.

Subject

CheckCat

Format

pdf

Language

English

Type

text

Identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10962/118204

Archive

Cory Library for Humanitites Research

Provenance

The item is held at the Cory Library for Humanities Research, Rhodes University, on behalf of the Labour Research Service

Extent

43 pages

Rights

Australian Government Publishing Service

Rights Holder

Australian Government Publishing Service

Use/re-use

The materials are made available explicitly for research and educational purposes. Any use of these materials must be cleared with the Labour Research Service.

Publisher

Australian Government Publishing Service

Item sets

General Materials

Media

vital_34607+SOURCE1+SOURCE1.0.pdf