Functional collective bargaining: Purpose of strike action

2 Comments

1. 

   GilesFiles on December 18, 2015 at 5:07 pm

   Prof Darcy du Toit has dealt with this case in his latest Weekly Comment Protecting the right to strike from its enemies and its friends in IR Network published by LexisNexis [subscription required]

   It had all the makings of a modern South African TV drama calculated to provoke strong emotions: a protected strike, low wages, threats of violence, a pro-Palestinian demo and, last but not least, the EFF getting involved. All these issues ended up in the Labour Court in National Union Of Food Beverage Wine Spirits and Allied Workers & others v Universal Product Network (Pty) Ltd & others (Case no: J 2182/2015, 9 November 2015).
   Predictably, the legal issues were less sensational: what are the requirements of a valid strike notice? What is required to interdict breach of a picketing agreement? And can support by a political party transform a protected strike into an unprotected strike? However, the answers given by the court amounted to a significant restatement and clarification of the core principles of South African strike law.
   The facts of the matter were widely publicised in the media. The employer is a subsidiary of Woolworths which, for months before the strike, had been involved in controversy over its failure to join a boycott of Israeli products in solidarity with Palestinian demands. As for the strike, the issues in dispute were wages and working conditions. According to the union, Woolworths was paying a minimum salary of R3 000 – R3 600 per month compared with up to R10 000 at other retailers. This, in the words of the union’s general secretary Nqobile Tshabangu, “is not a salary one can survive on.”
   Woolworths, on the other hand, explained that its wages are based on a “Warehouse Management System” in which employees’ roles “are very focused and process driven” as opposed to other retailers using an “end-to-end distribution function which involves multiple roles or a multi-skilled role” (“Wage strike hits Woolworths distribution centre” Fin24 19 October 2015). To add to the drama, thus, the dispute emerges as one involving restructuring based on a global model whereby employers gain greater efficiency and employees earn less.
   . . . . .
   The bottom line, perhaps, is that collective bargaining serves a very specific purpose. Different processes are available for achieving different purposes, whether to achieve political demands or to build solidarity among union members and workers. Collective bargaining may reinforce such processes but cannot supersede them or be what it is not.

2. 

   GilesFiles on February 8, 2016 at 11:06 am

   Reported:
   (2016) 37 ILJ 476 (LC)
   [2016] 4 BLLR April (LC)
   Headnote:
   Strike – Protected – While protected strike may lose protection if strikers resort to violence and adopt illegitimate demands fuelled by third parties, Labour Court will be slow to intervene if union dissociates itself from violence and illegitimate demands – Interdict against protected strike refused.