‘Winner take all’ is bad for Lonmin
AFTER Lonmin formally recognised the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) as the majority trade union at the company last week, CE Ben Magara enthused that the agreement was “excellent news for Lonmin, for our employees and for all our stakeholders”.
He could not be more wrong. Amcu, which now represents about 60% of the workforce, probably agrees with him. But the rest of Lonmin’s employees, represented mainly by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) with 20%, but also Solidarity and Uasa with about 4% between them, certainly don’t consider the Amcu recognition agreement to be “excellent news”.
That is because their recognition by Lonmin has been summarily revoked, in line with the “winner takes all” principle incorporated in the Labour Relations Act. This means Lonmin has gone from being an NUM-dominated company to an Amcu-dominated company at the stroke of a pen, with no attempt to recognise the tragic and tumultuous events that led to Amcu’s rise.
That is extremely short-sighted on both Lonmin’s and Amcu’s part, because those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. And nobody, surely, wants a repeat of the massacre of violently protesting Lonmin employees that took place at its Marikana mine a little over a year ago. It would be a gross oversimplification to attribute the Marikana killings solely to our archaic labour legislation — a range of factors played a role in creating the conditions that resulted in almost 50 lives being lost in a matter of a week, as is emerging, gradually, from the Farlam Commission of Inquiry into the incident.
But the fact that the disgruntled miners were unable to express adequately their unhappiness with their work and living conditions via the union they identified with at the time — Amcu — was to a large extent a result of the inflexibility and antidemocratic nature of the sys- tem. The NUM was the majority union, and Amcu’s memorandum to management was simply not taken seriously enough as a result.
Majoritarianism has other implications, and none of them should leave Mr Magara feeling so delighted. While dealing with just one union may be simpler for the company, it results in issues that do not concern that union being swept under the carpet. For instance, Solidarity and Uasa may only represent a small fraction of the Lonmin workforce, but they have historically attracted more skilled and middle management-level employees who have influence over the fortunes of the company disproportionate to their number. It makes no sense to alienate a union that could cripple operations by pulling a handful of its members off site.
In addition, while the NUM’s Damascene conversion to a more democratic recognition system since it lost its majority should be treated with scepticism, it too has the capacity to disrupt Lonmin’s operations if its members are unhappy. The tit-for-tat murders of rival union members that continue at Marikana to this day are testimony to that. The NUM’s position at Lonmin today is little different to that of Amcu’s a year ago — must its members now arm themselves and take to a koppie to ensure their grievances are heard?
Recognising that the right to freedom of association includes ensuring that people’s voices are heard is not the only labour market reform needed. As has been argued before in these columns, compulsory, anonymous strike ballots would also help ensure that individuals could express their opinions without being intimidated. It is also against the spirit of the constitution and the right of freedom of association that the labour minister is empowered to impose wage agreements negotiated at sector bargaining councils on nonparties. It is in government, business and labour’s best interests that these flaws be addressed without delay.