Pervasiveness of union bashing

TODAY I am going to focus my efforts on the pervasiveness of union bashing in this country and the likely impact that will have on productivity and overall economic growth. Unions play a crucial role in negotiating bread and butter issues for employees and also regarding their conditions of employment. It is through collective bargaining that workers are able to negotiate an efficient wage or better working conditions. We cannot discount the role that unions play in the country and the current moves by the authorities are quite concerning.

WThe 3% thorn

The most overt form of union bashing was seen when government offered a three per cent increment to non-unionised civil servants and excluded those who were in unions. This was a bad faith action aimed at weakening the power of the unions and it is not surprising, therefore, that we saw a mass exodus of employees from the union. If this was in good faith and not meant as an impetus to weaken the power of the unions, the employer would have given a flat three per cent increment to all employees as a cost-of-living adjustment (CoLA), while allowing the negotiation process to continue on the other hand with the unions. Adjustments would then have been made post the negotiations with the

HILE growing up I thought peer pressure was merely a concept created for young children who have not developed the backbone to stand against the grain, and maybe this is because of the hype that peer pressure is a phenomenon affecting only children. To an extent, this would make sense on the under-baked ideas that children are not mature enough to fully think for themselves as opposed to adults and thus the notion that they can easily be influenced into taking irrational and illogical decisions.

However, both knowledge and experience have brought me to the consensus that adults are also just as much victims of peer pressure and for many reasons.

Firstly, because any adult can be the least intellectual and strong minded one in a group and thus placing them below par in the wave they have chosen to ride and, as per the law of nature, there can only be leaders and followers and as such the ones with the lower IQ are most likely to follow those who unions, as the non-unionised employees also got the plus one once-off payment post the negotiations with the unions. I am afraid that this now does appear to be the most overt form of union bashing and it goes against the International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions that the country has signed and ascended.

Police, warders unionisation

Globally freedom of association is a pervasive right which cannot exclude the police; they have the right to form a union which will advocate for better working conditions, including better pay. Like other public sector unions, police unions influence the structure and operations of police departments in two ways; from the bottom up, through collective bargaining, and from the top down, through political activity. We are already getting wind that junior officers will now get a four per cent salary adjustment, or as it has been termed in the media.

This victory would not have been possible if the officers in the forces did not unionise. These are the benefits of collective bargaining and the power of mass action at play. It is, therefore, not prudent for the senior officers to coerce the junior officers to de-unionise, through use of force or intimidation as it has been widely reported in the media. There is no crime in forming a union and overt political activity, protest marches are part of the machinery of bargaining and if done in line with the Public Order Act I do not see any reason why people should be threatened with arrests.

Economic benefits of unionisation

Unions help raise productivity in the workplace by participating with management in the search for better ways of organising production. It is important for workers not to feel alienated from the system and to believe they have a stake in it. This helps in

decide where the wave should go. On the other hand adults become younger in mind as they grow older and, therefore, the elderly are likely to be childish, behave and reason as they would in their younger years, which makes them prone to exhibiting such behaviours. The child in the adult will thrive and thus their decisions and thinking become influenced by their peers and fitting into their societal scheme.

There is a thin line between the fear of what people will say in the community and the hardly introspected reality of peer pressure among adults and how in the long run it is detrimental to their children and even families at large. It is also true that the idea of peer pressure within adults is highly associated with women. However, this is not true and to an extent and some length men are worse, despite that the reflections of such are to some degree manifested differently as opposed to women.

Predominant

Nonetheless, such behaviours, which correlate with peer pressure, are still predominant among men too. For instance, somewhere at a carwash a man driving a white Nissan engages in a conversation with a man driving a Mercedes. They are meeting for the first time in years and the Nissan driver finds it necessary to overcompensate by offering to buy an expensive bottle of whiskey while explaining that he conveniently left his Range Rover at home for the wife to use and uses the Nissan when he goes to the farm.

While these scenarios among men are seen to be a norm, they are deeply rooted in the need for men to appear better and even wealthier. The drive back home will most likely be the Nissan man thinking about how well his acquaintance has done and how far behind he is, considering how he stretched the attaining efficiencies in the workforce and also helps with the adoption of new technologies to aid improve the output of different industries. Unions play a great role in negotiating a higher wage or at least an efficiency wage for their employees. Unions play a greater role in ensuring that employers align with ILO’s decent work agenda and desist from being exploitative. We know that in non-organised labour movements, exploitation abides. Unions, therefore, act a steward role to the employers and they are critical for economic advancement. We need to build a culture that embraces unions and not view them as external forces that we need to squash.

Political role of unions

We cannot discount the fact that unions play a political role. Before we are employees we are members of a community. Also, worker issues are negotiated in the confines of a socio-political environment, not in some vacuum in a boardroom. Commerce operates in a social and political environment, consequently they also have a stake in negotiating a proper socio-political environment.

Though the political and commercial disposition may seem unrelated, however, by virtue of having the numbers conglomerated under the unions, it becomes difficult to separate the two. This is why history will have us know that labour unions have played a pivotal role in political shifts globally, and this is not just unique to Eswatini.

They are a powerful force to consider for political action and since they bear a brunt of the taxation, they are intrinsically related to the public purse. Hence they are a powerful lever to move in the pursuit of other civil liberties.

Embrace unionisation

We need to learn to embrace unionisation as a country, while we quell negative behaviour that may arise because of unionisation. Employees need to understand that they have a duty to the employer and they must present as such to the employer or face punitive action. We need to sort our political environment rather than attack the unions, they are vital to worker relations. truth to look like he has been doing great according to the peer bar.

As we approach the Christmas season, we are approaching the peak of frustration for the men and women who are perpetuators of the peer pressure culture and those who are also merely victims of it. As such, it is the season of mothers competing; whose child has more accomplishments or whose house has the better décor or nicer ceilings. It is also at this time that a woman will visit their friend’s house for a stokvel meeting and spend half the time focusing on how expensive the mugs are or how polished the tiles are or how the roofing is the latest one. She will leave with a heart full of envy and frustration because now can she is thinking about everything that is wrong with her house and how embarrassed she might be in the next meeting to be held at her house because it is much smaller with old fashioned tiles. Her mind is already planning a conversation with her husband when she gets home about changing the ceiling and extending the side of the house.

Despite the mere fact that this is out of her family’s affordability range – out of peer pressure – she is yet to pressure her working children and husband to give her the expensive cups and a better roofing. The dilemma of peer pressure among adults is an unending string of social statuses and a battle of who has better and who has done better than the other, with the constant need to make decisions as long as it places you a little above the next person. It is an issue of ego and the inability to work and progress as per the parameters of one’s affordability and timeline, but rather through the bar set by one’s peers without being realistic about other factors.