Cheap trick

POLITICIANS have to canvass votes – that’s the reason for political parties.
 
In the intense and often emotional debates in this environment, politicians allow themselves a little poetic licence. Or perhaps more than a little.

If politicians generally kept to “a little”, ordinary mortals wouldn’t have such an aversion to them. The problem is that they often distort the truth. In other words, they mislead the public by playing on emotions to garner votes.

It is understandable – though unacceptable – that political representatives of the ruling party make themselves guilty of this.

The greatest weakness in South Africa's democracy is the absence of an effective opposition. For this reason it is probably important for the Democratic Alliance (DA) to protect its public credibility.

The private member's bill presented by DA shadow labour minister Ian Ollis goes far beyond poetic licence.

It falls squarely into the other category: totally misleading proposals which are designed to get support from the unsuspecting public with slick talk.

Over the past month or two South Africans have witnessed an excess of illegal behaviour during strikes. This includes violence and intimidation as well as the suspension of essential services, putting people's lives in danger.

That’s the appropriate time to initiate something that the DA has long attempted to do: to declare war on labour legislation and score a blow against the ANC’s alliance partners.

That's why Ollis happily submitted a private member bill to parliament. It proposes a couple of fairly simple amendments to the Labour Relations Act, including that in future trade unions have an obligation to ensure that property is not damaged or people hurt during a strike or any other collective action driven by unions.

If unions fail to comply, they will be liable for compensation.

As an afterthought, Ollis proposed that a court could declare a strike unprotected if it found that the union had not done enough to prevent violence or other illegal activities during the work stoppage.

One could imagine that the proposal would cause an outburst, but Ollis’ submission unfortunately has no chance of succeeding because that would mean the end of the unions.

At the current state of our democratic process, unions play a much larger role in maintaining the balance of power than does the party that Ollis represents.

And he knows it.

There is a world of difference between the relationship of a union to its members and that between other legal entities and individuals.

The relationship can in no way be compared with, for instance, companies and the employees of a particular company, where a company under certain circumstances can be held liable for acts by an employee or director on a company’s behalf.

A union acts on behalf of its members. Besides, the union is paid monthly by members to do so.

On the other hand, union members certainly do not act on behalf of the union.

At a collective level, unions have much the same relationship with their members that an attorney or other lawyer has with his client. And it's fairly logical that a lawyer cannot be held responsible for the actions or behaviour of his client.

The unfortunate thing about Ollis’ proposal is that there is a real incapacity within labour legislation, especially the Labour Relations Act, to prevent violence and other illegal acts such as the suspension of essential services.

Missed opportunity

If Ollis had only done his homework better, he would at least have been able to stimulate warm debate on the issue. Had he worked smarter, he might possibly have even devised legislation to add value to our labour laws, instead of attempting to undermine them.

All that is required is a mechanism within the structure of strikes that makes it possible for an employer or other parties to obtain a court order declaring a strike excessively violent or one that disrupts essential services.

This needs to be done urgently, while a strike is under way – not as an afterthought where compensation is demanded in a court case months or even years after the strike, as proposed by Ollis.

It would have to contain provisions enabling a judge to determine when a strike is exceptionally violent.

These sorts of provisions are indeed used to control strikes in many other industrial countries, without affecting the right to strike in a way that undermines democratic principles – which Ollis is attempting to do.

For that very reason, the International Labour Organisation has over many years developed relevant conventions.

An order such as this should then have the implication that the strike is declared unprotected. In other words, anyone participating in such a strike could be summarily dismissed.

With the current state of our police service this is the only hope of ending the unacceptable level of violence and lawlessness during strike action.

Please think again, Mr Ollis.

 - Sake24.com