Is the right to strike defendable when it comes to our educators?

PART ONE

STRIKE action, as a weapon for intensifying work place disorder, is a recurrent theme in labour studies.

But the right to strike appears to be the most controversial issue in the public sector.

Probably because of its disruptive and anti-normative character, striking does not feature prominently in educational discourse.

The inclusion of the right to strike in the national Constitution and labour relations legislation underscores its importance as a rational and necessary bargaining lever.

However, the exercising of this right by teachers is bound to raise questions regarding its utility, justification and effect on pupils, employer-employee relations, and the educational service in general.

Given the disruptive impact of strike action, how then is the teachers’ right to strike justified?

To answer this question, it would be necessary to examine the nature of strike action and its theoretical justification; the genesis of strike ideology within the educational sector, and transition to a democratic order, which, in effect, is antithetical to the utility of strike as a bargaining tool.

As a deliberate action or inaction of employees, striking is intended to damage, destroy or disrupt some aspects of the work place or environment, including the employer’s property, product, processes, or reputation, with the nett effect of undermining the goals of the employer sector.

Such action or inaction is an overt and dramatic manifestation of organisational conflict.

It takes the form of cessation of normal activities and may be supplemented by theatrical and potentially violent action, such as demonstration, picketing, protest meeting, sit-in, marching, taking of hostage, blockading, hijacking, or other use of force.

Covert or subterranean forms of striking include slow-downs, rule violation, unauthorised breaktaking, absenteeism, surreptitious resistance, or theft.

Current labour relations legislation forbids acts of violence or destruction, including the use of coercion against dissenters and nonparticipants.

Needless to say, refusal by tenants to pay rent, or prison inmates to take food, or students to attend lectures, is called ‘striking’ only by analogy.

The endorsement of strikes in the work place is based on three related assumptions, namely:

(a) The workplace is the site of ongoing conflict between employer and employee;

(b) The employee’s recourse to strike is induced by objectionable practices and conditions, and

(c) The employer’s outlook is inherently exploitative, obstinate and provocative, thereby making strike an appropriate and efficacious response.

These assumptions are patently controversial for employees in the public sector today.

The Constitutional right to strike is a necessary bargaining lever, but teachers exercising this right raises questions regarding its effect on pupils, argues PROF VIKA GABELA