The upcoming season of labour protests will make or break the labour movement, argues Eddie Koch
DO or die. That’s how a union shopsteward this week explained The Congress of South African Trade Unions’ decision to stage a 1980s-style programme of mass action around the Labour Relations Amendment Bill. Although unintended, his statement may just portend the fate of organised labour after the protests in June.
Cosatu last week announced it would mobilise its members in a campaign of rolling mass action, including lunch-time work stoppages and marches, that will culminate in a national day of protest on June 19 to back its demands around the new labour laws.
Central to the dramatic decision — which could lead to the biggest display of popular militancy since last year’s elections — is a determination by the unions to ensure that industry-wide collective bargaining is made compulsory in the country’s new labour relations law.
The parties are divided about why this breakdown in what appeared be a honeymoon spirit of cooperation and tripartism occurred so suddenly. Employers say it is a sign of weakness and desperation on the part of labour. Unionists insist it reflects a growing confidence and grassroots militancy in their ranks.
Either way, now that a de facto deadlock has occurred in talks over the Bill, which have been taking place in the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac), the labour movement stands at the crossroads.
If the unions’ collective muscle is strong enough, they will stamp their mark on a law that will shape industrial relations for the next few decades. If the mass action fizzles, they will lose the fight for the heart of the vital Bill.
Sources close to the employers’ team that has been bargaining with organised labour over the Bill say the move reflects a strategic decision by Cosatu to secure its rights by statute rather than by on-the-ground organisational strength in the factories.
“The unions here see labour movements around the world in decline or under attack. Their action — together with other demands like those for a closed shop or mandatory workers’ representation on company boards — reflects a deep concern about union security in a period of declining organisational strength,” says one
Cosatu representative Neil Coleman rejects the “brinksmanship theory” that dominates management explanations of Cosatu’s strategy. “We are undertaking this action now simply because business is not taking the negotiations over the Bill seriously,” he says.
“Despite a number of meetings over our demands, business has repeatedly refused to come back to the table with fresh mandates from their constituency to negotiate in a flexible way and move forward.”
Coleman says his national executive committee’s decision to embark on mass action followed, and reflected, popular militancy among rank-and-file members over an issue that “will shape labour relations in the country for the next 40 years”.
Proof of this, he says, is that a rash of strikes and protests over employers’ reluctance to accept industry- wide collective bargaining during annual wage negotiations had broken out in the chemical, retail and textile sectors well before the executive meeting last
“Our assistant general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi attended a regional shopstewards council on the Witwatersrand that was attended by about 1 200 shopstewards a week ago. He came back shocked and said he had never seen such a militant mood among our
Coleman acknowledges that the unions’ bargaining power over the bill will be weakened if the collective muscle fails. “But the history of Cosatu shows that single issue campaigns have captured the imagination of our members, particularly around burning issues. And make no mistake, this is a burning issue for our members.”
There are other reasons that explain the timing of Cosatu’s strategy. Most importantly, the labour federation clearly hopes that “the state” — the labour ministry, cabinet and a parliament made up of numerous former union activists — will lean in their favour.
This expectation is strengthened by the fact that the African National Congress cannot afford to alienate its strongest ally during the run-up to local government
Another factor that may tilt the balance of forces in favour of the unions is the government’s need for a stable system of labour relations in order to encourage foreign investment and economic growth. Labour Minister Tito Mboweni said as much this week when he insisted that the two parties meet the June deadline for agreement on a draft Bill.
Says Coleman: “If the mass action fails, the workers’ grievances will simply resurface later. There will be continued skirmishing and these issues will continue to raise their heads until they are resolved.
“Mboweni needs a new Bill in place and has gone on record as saying the old apartheid law is not in line with the new political situation. So although we are directing our demands at business, there is an element of challenge to the government.”
For the time being, however, employers have battened down the hatches and are hoping that countervailing forces will take the wind out of union strength in
‘It is patently nonsense to say we are stalling in the negotiation because it suits us to have the old Labour Relations Act instead of the new law,” says Adrian du Plessis, senior member of the employer delegation at
“We unreservedly support most of the proposals in the current draft of the Bill including the clauses which allow for central bargaining on a voluntary basis. It is the unions which are introducing new demands and holding up the process … We are firm on rejecting their demands for compulsory centralised bargaining.”
The tough stand by business will receive some encouragement from the stance adopted this week by Godfrey Oliphant, chairman of parliament’s standing committee on labour.
He said Cosatu’s assumption that ANC and fomer Cosatu MPs would support the union’s demands “might be a reasonable assumption” but was “not necessarily a given one balanced against national interests”.
Oliphant, himself a former vice president of Cosatu, said union members were justified in believing that it now had reliable allies in the state but that the unions’ case would ultimately be judged in parliament after being weighed against the country’s best
Stayaways, general strikes and national days of protest in South Africa are notoriously labile and their outcome difficult to predict. More clear is that next month’s season of mass action — whatever its outcome – – will mark a watershed in the history of the country’s labour movement.