Department wants changes to strikes law
AMENDMENTS: INCLUDE A PROPOSAL FOR TRADE UNIONS TO HOLD SECRET BALLOTS
This despite data in its annual reports showing strikes haven’t increased over the last 10 years.
Parliament is currently debating amendments to the Labour Relations Act (LRA) that will change how workers can go on strike. The amendments would require trade unions to hold secret ballots to decide on strike action and introduce a mechanism where strikes could be resolved through an advisory arbitration panel.
The Department of Labour has justified the proposed changes by arguing that strikes are prevalent, prolonged and increasingly violent.
But a look at the data provided in the department’s industrial action annual reports shows that strikes haven’t particularly increased over the last decade, tend to be resolved in under two weeks and that the vast majority occur peacefully.
Given that SA is among the most unequal countries in the world, lawmakers should be giving serious thought as to how they can protect the rights of workers and their right to strike.
Work stoppages vary
Over a 10-year period there has been a slight increase in the number of work stoppages. But this is a very imprecise measure of industrial action, as work stoppages vary in duration.
It’s, therefore, more accurate to use the number of working days lost as an indicator of the intensity of industrial action.
This data shows that there have been years where the number of working days lost has been high – including during the 2010 public sector strike and the 2014 platinum strike.
Overall, though, there has been a slight decline in working days lost.
The data also shows that strikes in South Africa don’t tend to be prolonged.
While some may argue that South Africa’s levels of strike activity is unacceptably high versus other countries, this isn’t borne out in the data.
University of Cape Town researchers Haroon Bhorat and David Tseng found that South Africa’s depth of strike activity was lower than a number of countries including the US, Brazil and India.
They also found that the intensity of South Africa’s strikers was comparable to a number of European states, among them Austria, Finland and Denmark.
It was much lower than countries such as Argentina, Spain and Italy.
This means South Africa’s levels of industrial action are comparable to or even lower than many other middle- and upper-income countries.
Violent vs orderly strikes
To date, there has been little attempt to quantify levels of strike violence. Data collected by Public Order Policing in the Incident Registration Information System counts crowd management incidents.
[I examined this data] … as part of a team at University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Social Change. We analysed a large representative sample of labour-related protests between 1997 and 2013. The vast majority – 88% – were orderly.
While incidents of violence during strikes should be taken seriously, it’s also important to understand them in proportion to their frequency.
The LRA is the cornerstone of South Africa’s industrial relations framework. Amendments should be based on robust evidence.
Carin Runciman is senior reseacher at UJ’s Centre for Social Change. This article was first published on The Conversation and has been edited.