Abstract:
This thesis aims to facilitate the sharing of reform practices through the achievements of public service reforms (PSR) in Nigeria and South Africa. In Africa, public service unions are traditionally seen as obstacles who oppose public service reforms with their assumed tested interests in dealing only with bread and butter issues and existing employment patterns and representing high pay packages. This thesis sets out to prove that trade unions have made an impact on public service reform in Nigeria and South Africa. Whilst the trade union movement is very strong in both countries, the relationship between the trade unions and the ruling party in South Africa is markedly different than that of Nigeria. As the workplace environment has changed so to have the trade unions. Trade unions are now being criticised for failing to respond to the needs of the workers and the trade union leadership are seen as part of a statist political coalition. In concluding, this study has been successful in achieving the aims regarding the impact of trade unions on public service reform and that trade unions are not a spent force and have a constructive role to play as it has gone beyond the stage of talking about public service reform and the debate needs to shift from reforming to re-creating the public service, re-engineering the public service and re-forming the public service.
Description:
Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Administration in the discipline of Public Administration in the Faculty of Commerce, Administration and Law at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2011.
