‘Workers’ rights rolled back as Covid-19 strikes’ 23 June 2020

The rights of workers to go on strike have been seriously eroded in the past six years. The recently released International Trade Union Confederation (Ituc) Global Rights Index found that, in 2020, strikes have been “severely restricted or banned” in 85% of the countries surveyed. This is an increase of 25% since 2014. According to the study, which looks at the worst countries for workers, this erosion of the right to strike has been accompanied by a slew of other violations, including the limiting of workers’ rights to join trade unions and to access collective bargaining. In the last year, South Africa’s global labour rights rating has worsened, indicating that the country has seen regular violations.

…In South Africa, the pandemic comes on the back of a set of sweeping changes to labour legislation at the end of 2018, which critics argued rolled back hard-won rights of workers to strike. One of these changes was the controversial strike ballot provision, which requires trade unions to conduct a vote in secret before embarking on industrial action. The provision has been used by the labour registrar to deregister trade unions that have failed to conduct strike ballots. The provision has also been used by employers to interdict strikes by deeming them unprotected, although a recent labour appeal court judgment has refuted the lawfulness of this course of action.

…The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) has stepped in on at least three occasions to prevent strikes by these workers during the lockdown. Meanwhile institutions through which workers access their rights, like the CCMA, were forced to limit their operations during the first phases of the lockdown.  In April, the Mail & Guardian revealed that in the first month of the lockdown the CCMA dealt with an average of 190 case referrals a day. This was down from an average of 775 new cases referred to the CCMA every working day in the 2018-2019 financial year.