BRONWEN ROBERTS, Pretoria | Tuesday 10.10am
SOUTH Africa last year lost 3,8-million work days to strikes, nearly six times more than in 1997, according to government statistics released on Monday.
“While the majority of strikes focused on wages, a significant proportion were retrenchment related,” Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana said at the release of the Department of Labour’s report on industrial action in 1998.
“The indications are that this year’s levels could be even higher,” he said. In 1997 about 650000 days were lost to industrial action, the lowest since 1990, according to government figures.
The report said that 3,2-million workers were last year involved in 527 strikes, resulting in R48,3-million in lost wages. Most work days were lost in the manufacturing sector, followed by the financial services industry and mining, it said. The average strike lasted seven days and the longest was 86 days.
Mdladlana said South Africa’s strike rate should not discourage investors as government is working to ensure “certainty” in the labour market through new legislation.
He added, “It is correct that workers’ ability to withdraw their labour is a fundamental weapon of workers’ power. But is it not a weapon that we use as a last resort?” — AFP