The SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) has called on labour registrar, advocate Lehlohonolo Molefe, to resign after the labour court suspended his decision to deregister the Democratic Municipal and Allied Workers Union of SA (Demawusa) on Tuesday.
Molefe deregistered the union on January 31 after it allegedly failed to provide proof that it conducted a secret ballot prior to its members going on a protected strike, among other reasons.
This was after Johannesburg’s Metrobus employees, who are members of Demawusa, embarked on a protected strike action on September 17 to demand that workers be paid according to their experience, and that the union be allocated offices and resources in all three Metrobus depots.
“Literally the next day, after seeing the strike on television, the office of the registrar wrote a letter to Demawusa to demand proof that the union had secretly balloted the members in line with the new provision of the Labour Relations Act (LRA),” Saftu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said.
On Tuesday, the labour court ruled that Molefe’s decision to deregister Demawusa is suspended pending the outcome of the union’s appeal against the decision.
“Saftu has maintained that the office of the registrar acted not only recklessly but its decision is informed by the political bias against the independent, democratic and campaigning unions that do not form part of the sweetheart arrangement of the tripartite alliance with the governing party,” said Vavi.
“We have charged that the registrar is wholly inconsistent in the application of the law. Unions in the tripartite alliance, which, for years, did not comply with the provisions of their own constitution and in direct contradiction to sections 98, 99 and 100 [of the LRA], were never deregistered.”
The labour registrar has been cracking the whip on unions who allegedly fail to comply with their constitutions and the LRA. In March 2019, Molefe issued a notice of intention to deregister the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), saying it had violated its own constitution, a move the union described at the time as a political attack aimed at destroying it.
At the time, Molefe charged that Amcu had not held an elective conference for five years and had ceased to function as a genuine trade union as envisaged in the LRA. In September, Molefe ditched plans to deregister the union after a number of written representations from its leadership.
The Amcu leadership told delegates at its national elective conference later in September that they had told Molefe “if you dare deregister Amcu, the mines and other industries will come to a standstill”.
However, Molefe denied being threatened by the union for his decision to not go ahead with his plans to deregister it.
In May 2019, Molefe wrote a letter to SA’s largest trade union, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa), saying its audit reports from 2009 to 2015 had failed to comply with the LRA.
Numsa was expelled from union federation Cosatu, a key ally of the ANC, in November 2014. The Saftu affiliate has insisted that it complies with the LRA and described moves to deregister it as political.
On Wednesday, Molefe told Business Day that his office is studying the labour court judgment. “Once we are done, we will then decide on whether we should appeal the judgement.”
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