Category Archives: strike

The 2010 Mass Strike in the State Sector, South Africa: Positive Achievements but Serious Problems
Social.History Online / Sozial.Geschichte Online
by Ian Bekker and Lucien van der Walt
Issue 4 / 2010
pp. 138-152

Abstract

The August-September 2010 mass strike in the South African state sector demonstrated remarkable working class unity across racial and ideological lines, as 1.3 million workers of all colours stopped work for four weeks despite severe economic recession. The strikers’ determination reflected growing frustration with low wages and at the glaring political corruption and enrichment of the elite, plus the drive – by African, coloured and Indian workers specifically – to attain living conditions breaking decisively with the oppression and immiseration of the apartheid past. Yet the strikers’ partial victory was tarnished by tactics that divided strikers from the larger working class – notably, hospital disruptions – and a failure to raise demands that linked union and community struggles against both neo-liberalism and the apartheid legacy. The top-down manner whereby the strike was ended makes workers cynical about their own unions, demonstrating the alarming bureaucratisation and centralisation that has arisen, in large part, due to union leaders being enmeshed in the African National Congress (the neo-liberal governing party) and state industrial relations machinery. Unions should re-orientate towards other working class movements, outside and against the state, to fight for a libertarian and socialist transformation, from below. The ideas of anarcho-syndicalism – raised at the 2009 COSATU Congress – provide a useful starting point.

Shack Dwellers Strike at National Print, Pinetown ++ SHOTS FIRED ++

Update: 27 January 18:32 – the bosses have flown down from Jo’burg to negotiate with the strikers and the strike has been suspended while the negotiations are ongoing. So far things are looking very positive.

150 contract workers at National Print, in Westmead, Pinetown, have walked off the job. The night shift workers will also refuse to work tonight.

The contract workers have decided to go on strike in protest at the attempt by the CEO to suddenly reduce their working hours and, therefore, their income. January is the month when poor families struggle to pay school fees and to buy school uniforms, books and stationery. This is a very bad time for people to suddenly lose most of their income.

About 70% of the contact workers at National Print are shack dwellers, most from the Abahlali baseMjondolo strongholds of Motala Heights, New Maus and Mpola. We have successfully resisted eviction from our settlements and we will also resist eviction from our workplaces.

The economy is in crisis due to the extreme greed of the rich. We have worked hard and done our work well. We are not to blame for the crisis. It is common sense that no one should take more than they need for themselves and their family. It is also common sense that no one should be able to take less than they need for themselves and their family. Everyone in this world has a right to a decent income.

For comment from the scene of the strike contact Lindo (AbM Youth League and National Print Worker) on 074 460 5806.

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BREAKING NEWS

The strikers at National Print in Westmead, Pinetown, are currently under police attack. Rubber bullets and stun grenades have been fired. It is too early to determine if the police have also used live ammunition or how many people have been injured.

For more information contact Lindo at 074 460 5806

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Update on the National Print Strike

Twenty of the strikers at National Print in Westmead, Pinetown, were injured by the police yesterday. Some of the strikers who fled the police attack at the factory gates in Westmead were later accosted by the police in central Pinetown and viciously assaulted there.

The strike continues.

For more information contact Lindo at 074 460 5806

The APF fully supports the ongoing strike by municipal workers for a decent, living wage

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Tuesday 28th July 2009

The APF fully supports the ongoing strike by municipal workers for a decent, living wage

Poorly paid municipal workers along with massive job vacancies and managerial corruption = poor service delivery

The Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF) and its 30+ community affiliates fully supports the ongoing strike by municipal workers across the country, led by the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) and the Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union (IMATU). The workers demands for a 15% wage increase, the filling of the almost 100 000 vacant positions at municipal level and the rooting out of corruption and mismanagement are all completely legitimate and reasonable.

The living wage demand is simply that. In the context of rising basic food, electricity, transport, and health costs, not to mention the knock-on effects of the global and domestic capitalist crisis, it is ordinary workers who have seen their standards of living decrease dramatically. A 15 % rise in wages will do nothing more than provide municipal workers with a basic, living wage. It is more than outrageous for government officials and big business (alongside their various cheerleaders) to claim that such a demand is unaffordable and that workers must continue to accept the very ‘sacrifices’ that they themselves are unwilling to accept.

The further demands to fill the huge amount of vacant posts at municipal level and to root out managerial corruption is simply a call for government to fulfil its democratic mandate to the people. How can there be effective, efficient and sustained delivery of public services when there are so few permanent workers trying to do their jobs? Indeed, the continued protests of poor communities across the country – which have now been going on for many years – are directly linked to the continued exploitation of municipal workers, the failure to adequately staff municipalities and ongoing managerial corruption.

The APF joins SAMWU and IMATU in their calls on the government to immediately accede to the wage demands of the striking municipal workers and to embark on sustained recruitment of permanent workers at the local level as well as show the political will to act against managerial corruption and arrogance. As part of the ‘army of the unemployed’, the APF also calls on our communities to support the strike and to tolerate the temporary disruption in the delivery of services. The millions who have no job and who live in grinding poverty have common cause with the striking workers. Let us not fall into the capitalist trap of blaming the workers and poor for responding actively to their own oppression.

VIVA THE COMMON STRUGGLES OF MUNICIPAL WORKERS AND POOR COMMUNITIES!

For further comment/information contact: Dale on 072 429-4086

M&G: Three horsemen visit Durban

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http://www.mg.co.za/article/2008-10-16-three-horsemen-visit-durban

Three horsemen visit Durban
NIREN TOLSI | DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA – Oct 16 2008 06:00

In the past weeks the streets of eThekwini appear to have been preparing for the horsemen of the apocalypse.

For three weeks a wildcat bus driver strike has left miserable commuters huddled in lashing rain waiting for taxis or simply forced to walk to their destinations.

The thunder of electric storms sounds like the hooves of Pestilence’s horse drumming in anticipation as the rubbish piles up in the rain because garbage collectors have also been on strike. Nineteen municipal buses and five trucks from the city’s Durban solid waste (DSW) department have been torched — the flames resembling War’s red horse.

The beachfront was a wreck too. From Umgeni River mouth to Addington Beach near the harbour, the Golden Mile was strewn with broken glass and the carnage of a debauched end-of-term celebration by schoolkids, cleaned only a weekend later by scab labour.The chaos has been exacerbated by the malfunctioning traffic lights that have become as ubiquitous to Durban as bunny chow.

This week opposition parties lambasted the municipality for lack of leadership during what the DA called “the biggest crisis the city has encountered in a very long time”.

DA caucus leader John Steenhuisen said he found it “incomprehensible” that the council’s executive committee had not been called out of recess: “The city is being devastated and yet the mayor [Obed Mlaba] feels there is no need to call a meeting. This is really pedestrian leadership. These issues aren’t even on the agenda for next week’s exco meeting,” said Steenhuisen on Wednesday.

Municipal manager Mike Sutcliffe, meanwhile, feels there is a “deeper political issue” behind the strikes, which he said are part of a common thread linked to “criminally motivated xenophobia” earlier this year. Sutcliffe refused to expand on this third force hypothesis.

A more obvious explanation is that the crisis is the result of government policies gone awry.

The bus drivers’ strike was triggered when the city bought back its bus fleet from Remant Alton at the end of August for R405-million after selling the service for R70-million in 2003 in a black economic empowerment deal. Despite the buy-back, Remant Alton will continue running the service and disaffected drivers are demanding to be re-employed by the municipality. The municipality has refused, claiming it is not allowed to function as both regulator and operator.

The garbage build-up came after the city outsourced parts of its clean-up operation to independent agencies, causing 200 temporary workers to go on strike, demanding permanent employment by DSW.

Alfred Dludlu is spokesperson for the South African Agent Labour Brokers Workers Movement, a body created to deal with the demands of both bus drivers and cleaners.

He said that what should have been an opportunity for small enterprises to tender for contracts, with employees also benefiting, has been hijacked by a “corrupt politically connected” cabal.

“We want permanent employment, not the slavery of agency work. There is a lot of corruption involved in who gets the cleaning tenders and these people pay us as little asR1 200 a month,” said Dludlu.

While the DA’s Steenhuisen has called for a code of practice to ensure outsourcing of municipal functions does not lead to economic opportunism, Sutcliffe refuted the notion that the current situation turned a blind eye to workers and was anti-poor.

He called the rubbish collectors’ demands “absolutely outrageous” and tantamount to “kidnapping”. Sutcliffe said the municipality would hire more permanent cleaners in the next two years but there would be “no jumping to the front of the queue”. Sutcliffe also dismissed the notion that greater vigilance by the municipality when handing out tenders and contracts might have averted the two strikes.

This is despite repeated criticism levelled at Remant Alton since 2003 for its unreliable service, constantly breaking fleet and poor working conditions. In 2006 the provincial transport department took 63 unsafe Remant Alton buses off the road, with then director general Kwazi Mbanjwa describing them as “mobile graves”.

“When we worked for the municipality we were earning R7 000 upwards and when we started at Remant Alton we earned R4 000 a month without benefits. In 2008 we are still nowhere near the R7 000 we were earning in 2003,” said one bus driver, Famine hovering above.

Remant Alton has several politically connected businessmen, including Diliza Mji and Rajan Naidoo, on its board. Its executive officer, Paul Rush, said an agreement, which included the rehiring of more than 900 drivers fired two weeks ago, was reached with the various unions last Friday, but it was rejected by drivers. Remant Alton announced this week it would close “indefinitely”.

Bus driver Bongani Ndlovu said his co-workers had formed a committee to deal with their demands rather than turn to the unions “who are doing nothing for us”. “Everything at Remant Alton is upside down,” said Ndlovu, claiming drivers had “not seen” the benefits of a 30% stake they were promised in 2003 and that provident fund money had been deducted but not deposited into accounts.

With trucks burning, allegations of striker intimidation and a city march planned for Friday, eThekwini still awaits the final horseman: Death.

SACCAWU: Call for Solidarity

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Call for Solidarity

At the Press Conference hosted jointly by SACCAWU and COSATU to give an update on the dispute and explain the reasons for the call of a consumer boycott of Woolworths a background document was circulated on the nature and history of the dispute. Below is a summary the document.

Briefing on the background to the current Woolworths strike

More than five thousand Union members are in the third week of a protected strike arising out of an organisational rights dispute between SACCAWU and Woolworths.

Employment Profile of the Company

At the time when dispute with Woolworthsfirst arose in 1999 with the unilateral derecognition of the Union, the company already had extremely high levels of atypical forms of employment and this has worsened since. At the time Woolworths claimed a staff compliment of 12 407 with more than 70% casual employees. By 2007 the staff compliment grew with to 17 838 with the percentage of full time staff shrinking in real terms, while the flexible employee compliment grew to 12 546. If the management are removed from these company figures the percentages will even be higher. In this same period the company’s turnover grew by more than 110% from R8.8 billion to R18.6 billion over the same period. While operating profits for the same period grew by more than 300%.

History of Unionisation within Woolworths

The first recognition agreement between the Union and the Company was signed in June 1983, at the time the Union was known as CCAWUSA. The agreement covered permanent employees only. An amended agreement was signed in November 1990 still only covering permanent employees and excluding casual employees who already constituted a substantial number. In 1999 SACCAWU was derecognised through unilateral inclusion of casual employees in the scope of the agreement. The struggle for recognition was accordingly waged since then. In June 1999 the parties deadlocked at conciliation. The Union then referred the dispute for arbitration over application and/or interpretation of a collective agreement in line with the applicable provisions of the LRA. While this dispute was referred in June 1999 an arbitration date by the CCMA was finally arranged in 2004 as a result of pressure from the Union. At arbitration the Company argued that the CCMA had no jurisdiction to arbitrate the matter. The Union argued that the CCMA does have jurisdiction and the Commissioner ruled in favour of the Union. The Company then decided to review the CCMA ruling but did not ensure that the Labour Court finally decides on the matter as it was obviously not in their interests to do so.

The struggle for re-recognition

Due to the delays by the CCMA and Woolworths to finalise this matter and the negative impact it had on our membership, SACCAWU resolved to start from the beginning again which led to the current dispute.

In the current dispute SACCAWU seeks to exercise two basic rights; stop order facilities and access to Company premises outside working hours. These rights are accorded to a sufficiently representative Union in terms of the LRA. The LRA does not specify a specific percentage for sufficient representativity but outlines guidelines that should be considered in deciding on whether a Union is sufficiently representative or not. The LRA specifies the following elements for consideration in deciding whether a union is sufficiently representative:

* * The nature of the workplace;
* * The nature of one or more organisational rights that the registered trade union seeks to exercise;
* * The nature of the sector in which the workplace is situated;
* * The organisational history at the workplace or any other workplace of the employer.

All of these considerations has relevance to this case.

Further, the LRA calls upon unions that seek to exercise one or more organisational rights to specify facts upon which they rely to demonstrate that they are representative.

Issues in the current dispute concerns, the threshold for sufficient representativity and the facts upon which the Union relies to demonstrate that it is a representative union. The Union believes that 15% constitutes sufficient representativity for organisational rights in the retail sector given high levels of atypical forms of employment as well as benchmarks that have been established through engagement with other employers within the sector. The Union also believes that signed stop order forms suffice as proof of membership.

The employer on the other hand insists on 30% as sufficient representativity whilst they only want to consider forms that are not older than three months. This is outrageous given the history of the dispute as well as the sector within in which we organise. We must stress that Woolworths is the only employer which insists on this three months within the sector. Whilst the Union believes that it is above even the 30% that the employer is demanding the company’s rigid adherence to forms that are not older then three months implies that the union will not be recognised even if it can organise all Company employees given the history of engagement since 1999 as well as the high staff turnover within the Company a consequence of the high levels of casualisation at Woolworths.

It is these factors, taken together, as well as the Company’s adherence to the anti-union Walmart philosophy that compelled the Union to embark upon protected industrial action. Whilst the Company claims that it recognises freedom of association it also qualifies this by indicating that it prefers direct one-on-one interaction with workers. Worse still the company has been abusing both the CCMA and the Labour Court in frustrating the workers right to belong to a union of their choice.

At the same time it appear that there is collusion between the Company and Landlords to frustrate the workers right to picket in the current strike. The Union has also noted the CCMA’s reluctance in exercising its powers in disputes against Woolworths. It is for this reason that the Union will also be targeting both the CCMA and the Department of Labour in its programme of mass action.

The union believes that facts and figures contained in this document clearly indicate the type of employer that the Union is dealing with. The Union also believes that the Company’s actions undermine the spirit of the Labour Relations Act and Social Dialogue within the country since the LRA is a product of NEDLAC engagements. It for this reason that the union will also be marching to BUSA offices on the 3rd of October.

The Union calls upon all progressive formations and he public in general to support the boycott of Woolworths products and render any possible support to the current strike.

Mike Abrahams
media@saccawu.org.za