TRC Final Report

Volume 5

Chapter 9

Subsection 41

In the business sector:

141 The following example of a truth and reconciliation initiative in the business community is based on a report in Business Day newspaper by Mzwandile Jacks, on 28 May 1998:

Hearings Disclose Dorbyl’s “Racist Past”

In May 1998, industrial holding company Dorbyl released a report by eight independent commissioners appointed two years ago “to conduct truth commission-style hearings and expose the group’s past to public and employee scrutiny”. The report identified past racism as a factor which continued to have a negative effect on staff morale and showed a lack of trust of management. Many of the complaints heard by the commission related to alleged unfair labour practices. Dorbyl Chief Executive Bill Cooper, who joined the company in 1994, said the process of conducting hearings showed aspects of the group’s past of which present senior management was unaware. It is reported that Mr Cooper said: “We also learnt that practices of the past were still rampant in some Dorbyl operations”.

As a result of this process, the group is reported to be in the process of establishing a body that will develop and debate new corporate policy. Mr Ketan Lakhani, the convenor of Dorbyl’s transformation process, stated that most employees were open to change. “We convinced people that the commission was not a witchhunt but an effort to make the company more productive.”

142 An editorial in the Sowetan newspaper on 29 May 1998 responded as follows to Dorbyl’s initiative:

The principle that only a complete and truthful disclosure of past human rights abuses can guarantee lasting reconciliation is now well established. So too is the belief that the obligation to come clean on the past extends beyond our political institutions. To that extent, business, academic and religious institutions also have a responsibility to ensure they disclose the extent of their role in sustaining apartheid. Dorbyl has taken a commendable lead in this regard. Its readiness to investigate and expose its past will go a long way towards repairing relations with workers. It will also help workers reassess their views about management and Dorbyl’s claimed commitment to the new political order.

Other enterprises must emulate Dorbyl’s example. That will make a valuable contribution to the broader effort under way to construct a durable social partnership.