HIV This Week

Vaas JR. The role of HIV/AIDS committees in effective workplace governance of HIV/AIDS in South African small and medium-sized enterprises. SAHARA J. 2008;5(1):2-10.

The primary purpose of this study was to assess the role, status and scope of workplace AIDS committees as a means of effective workplace governance of AIDS impact, and their role in extending social protective HIV-related rights to employees. In-depth qualitative case studies were conducted in five South African small and medium-sized enterprises that were actively implementing HIV policies and programmes. Companies commonly implemented HIV policies and programmes through a workplace committee dedicated to HIV or a generic committee dealing with issues other than HIV. Management, through the human resources department and the occupational health practitioner often drove initial policy formulation, and had virtually sole control of the AIDS budget. Employee members of committees were mostly volunteers, and were often production or blue collar employees, while there was a notable lack of participation by white-collar employees, line management and trade unions. While the powers of workplace committees were largely consultative, employee committee members often managed in an indirect manner to secure and extend social protective rights on HIV to employees, and monitor their effective implementation in practice. In the interim, workplace committees represented one of the best means to facilitate more effective workplace HIV governance. However, the increased demands on collective bargaining as a result of an anticipated rises in HIV-related morbidity and mortality might prove to be beyond the scope of such voluntary committees in the longer term.

Editors’ note: With human resources and occupational health representatives predominating and little trade union involvement, these committees, that have done much to extend employee rights and social protection, are ill equipped to face more serious HIV-related issues. Employee representatives and shop stewards in these companies, some of which have HIV prevalence as high as 20%, need to ensure that collective bargaining agreements include training and policy information for shop stewards. Departments of Labour should be monitoring implementation of the code of good practice on HIV in businesses of all sizes.