Trade unions are planning a major offensive against the new Labour Relations Bill, reports Eddie Koch
ORGANISED labour flexed its muscles this week as talks between trade unions and employers over the new Labour Relations Bill headed for deadlock.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) will hold an emergency executive meeting at the weekend to discuss plans for a mass protest campaign that will bolster its demands around the Bill.
“We are heading for a crisis and unless this week’s round of talks can resolve major issues of conflict we could be in for a period of worker action,” said a union source.
A critical meeting to resolve major differences between employers and labour was due to be held in Johannesburg yesterday. But the major union federations have already moved into protest gear as they anticipate an impasse.
Union sources said there was a wide gap between the parties on major issues relating to the new Bill. “It looks like there will be protracted conflict over these issues,” said a source.
“Cosatu is planning a mass protest campaign for early June. The exact form this will take will be decided at a special executive meeting on Friday and Saturday this week,” another source said.
It appears that shopsteward councils have already met around the country to discuss possible collective action — sit-ins, protest marches and stoppages — with most of the militancy centred on Gauteng.
The hottest dispute centres around the “workplace forums” that the Bill provides for. The unions want the forums to be union-based and mandatory structures. Employers say they are willing to “encourage” the forums but are insisting that they be voluntary.
The draft Labour Relations Bill suggests the forums be set up to promote “worker participation in decision- making in the workplace” and would give a company’s labour force extensive influence over key management and safety issues.
The talks are also likely to deadlock over centralised bargaining. Unions want it made obligatory that managements enter into industry-wide negotiations over conditions of employment as well as measures to restructure the economy.
A third major point of contention is an insistence by employers that management be allowed to use the lock- out as an offensive weapon to pressure workers into accepting management offers around employment conditions.
Section 47 of the draft Bill gives workers the right to strike and employers the right to lock-out once all collective bargaining procedures outlined in the draft law have been exhausted.
Labour Minister Tito Mboweni is putting pressure on the parties to reach consensus on his draft Bill so that it can be passed through Parliament before the end of the year. He has said that he will push it through anyway if agreement is not reached.