Labour ‘sea-change’ needed in SA, says Cheadle - by Evan Pickworth – THE chief architect of South Africa’s under-fire labour laws, Halton Cheadle, on Thursday threw his weight behind some of Reserve Bank governor Gill Marcus’s criticism of South Africa’s labour laws. Prof Cheadle conceded that South Africa’s labour laws were under siege due to increased illegality and violence. He called for a sea-change in institutional behaviour, and said unions needed to take more responsibility, while the police had to improve their handling of strikes. "The law has a limited role to play. Whether it works effectively depends on the interaction between employer associations and unions," he said. Prof Cheadle, a leading labour law author, told the national labour conference on Thursday — a day after Ms Marcus spoke at the same event — that it was important for unions and employers to improve their recognition of geographic and occupational differences, but also to lift their representation levels. "Germany has a successful sectoral system where wages are set at a sectoral and national level between unions and employers’ associations. There are very high rates of representation in employers’ associations and those wages cut across big and small business." He echoed Ms Marcus’s observation that South Africa’s labour law had to bring small and medium business into the formal system, which catered mainly for large companies. The National Employers’ Association of South Africa successfully challenged the extension of a bargaining agreement to nonparties by Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant earlier this year, while a collective agreement in the metal sector was set aside last year for the same reason. This has raised concern about the relevance of bargaining council agreements and there have been calls for employers and unions to increase their membership bases in sectors where they are active. The right of the minister to extend collective agreements herself is now being challenged in the Constitutional Court. In her speech, Ms Marcus said the labour market regime had not been able to link pay closely enough to productivity growth. She said better agreements were possible within the existing legal framework. With wage mediation talks in the gold sector faltering on Thursday, Prof Cheadle was critical of the increasingly violent nature of strikes. South Africa’s labour laws are being amended, with Parliament swinging strongly in favour of removing provisions for strike ballots and picketing rules to appease the African National Congress’s ally, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, ahead of an election year. "Unions need to take more responsibility and the police have to improve their handling of strikes," Prof Cheadle said. Afzul Soobedaar, the mediator appointed by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration for the gold wage talks, told Business Day more meaningful pre-bargaining arrangements — which did not agree on demands, but laid out issues clearly — were vital to successful mediation. Two mediators — Mr Soobedaar and Peter Harris — have been assigned to help in the gold sector’s wage talks, which have turned increasingly acrimonious. "Strikes in themselves cannot resolve a dispute. The parties have to sit across a table and reach a resolution," Mr Soobedaar said. He said more CEOs needed to get involved in bargaining as too many consultants were being used to relay messages back and forward without being able to make decisions. But he did not see the Chamber of Mines, an employer organisation for gold companies, as lacking gravitas to take negotiations forward. "They do have fairly senior people involved in the negotiations," he said. Mr Soobedaar said the Marikana mediation — which ended last year’s violent and deadly strike — had worked only because all stakeholders were involved. "Otherwise, we would still be sitting there," he said. "Be prepared to push the envelope and find creative solutions — don’t be married to your positions or come wearing blinkers," he said. "You’ve got to think until it hurts in a strike negotiation ... there is no place for cowboys, divas and prima donnas." Mr Soobedaar called for better "rules of engagement" well before a strike action started — in times of peace. Article published with the kind courtesy of bdlive.co.za
Posted on: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 09:59:22 +0000
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