ONE of the more remarkable sidelights of the Pick ‘n Pay dispute has been the comment by the Democratic Party’s Douglas Gibson that as a developing country, South Africa “cannot afford militant unions much longer”.
The National Party has also weighed in with calls for government intervention, saying that “unambiguous choices will have to be made in favour of stability and economic growth”.
Are we to understand that the two parties, which vaunt their libertarian and free-market principles, favour a Zimbabwean-style labour regime in which government regulation replaces collective bargaining? The statements have an ominous ring, recalling the apartheid state’s obsession with the subversive potential of the independent black labour movement and preference for bureaucratic sweetheart organisations.
For the choice is a stark one: either the state in its wisdom decides what is in the best interests of working people and the business community, or wages and working conditions are set in a free test of their organised strength. Strikes and lockouts are not necessarily symptoms of economic malaise — they are integral to a free society.
Gibson seems unaware of the real stakes in the “new South Africa”: that if independent centres of power, such as unions, are weakened, they will cease to be effective counter-balances to the central state.
This does not imply support for mindless activism: the unions have a responsibility to the broader community, to the poorly organised and unorganised and the unemployed. Militancy must be constructively channelled, each strike carefully weighed for its wider implications, and the general thrust must be towards a co-operative relationship with enterprise.
The state, for its part, should steer well clear of individual labour disputes. By, for example, encouraging centralised bargaining, its role must be to create a framework for industrial co-operation and to foster a strong and responsible union movement.