While over the years many in business and the investor community have bemoaned SA’s "strong" trade unions, it is now more appropriate that business worry about their fragmentation and weakness.
In the past six or seven years, two big movements took place: the rise of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) in 2012, which caused the National Union of Mineworkers to bleed tens of thousands of members, and the expulsion of the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) from Cosatu in 2014. In addition to these, there have been numerous small splits in individual unions and the formation of dozens of new unions and worker organisations.
The membership figures of the big trade unions and federations are strongly disputed but roughly what we have now is Cosatu with about 1.9-million members, followed by the South African Federation of Trade Unions with about 700,000 (with Numsa, the country’s biggest union, at the core), followed by the Federation of Unions of SA with about 556,000. Amcu, which until recently was an affiliate of the National Council of Trade Unions and has a substantial membership of 250,000, now stands outside of any labour federation.
Where unions and union leaders are weak or lack credibility, disputes are more likely
In stark contrast to the historical spirit of May Day of international worker unity, each formation held its own separate rally as SA marked Workers’ Day on Tuesday. Amcu took its special blend of sectarianism even further and demanded that Workers’ Day be celebrated on August 16 in the future, to mark the anniversary of the Marikana massacre.
Disunity, fragmentation and interunion rivalry weakens workers and trade unions and dilutes their bargaining power. But it also weakens the collective bargaining architecture as a whole. In a political context where a violent political culture is deeply embedded, weakened institutions and disunited social actors are a recipe for instability.
Whereas the most pressing concern about the functioning of the labour market in the 1990s was the rigidity imposed by the insider-outsider/employed-unemployed divide, now it is the propensity for violence during industrial action.
Where unions and union leaders are weak or lack credibility, disputes are more likely. Leaders are less able to drive a credible bargain that persuades workers that the moment is right to strike a deal; and weak unions tend to leave workers problems and issues to fester for months, resulting in an unpredictable explosion on the shop floor.
Such dynamics appear to be at work in the dispute at Johannesburg’s Charlotte Maxeke Hospital, where workers have been on the rampage, spilling bins of medical waste in the corridors and interfering in hospital operations for several days over long-standing disputes.
They are also to some extent evident in the three-week-old bus strike, with three unions of different persuasions locked in a dispute with employers over a 1% difference in the wage offer. The wage dispute could perhaps be solved, but alongside are outstanding and festering issues such as the long-established practice that a relief driver is not paid for work while travelling and is only paid for time when he is actually driving.
What can be done? Both unions and the government need to respond to this new set of circumstances.
The labour-business-government pact of the 1990s, expressed through the National Economic Development and Labour Council, is being overtaken by events. There are new trade union players, apart from Cosatu, which now require the government’s attention. It needs to reach out and build solid relationships with all labour formations and end its preference for its political ally Cosatu.
For the unions, the remedy is not quick and easy.
The entire landscape needs an overhaul. Too many unions are riddled with corruption and patronage. The best hope is that in time newer unions, focused on servicing workers, will emerge.
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