LRA missing strike ballot amendment

[miningmx.com] – RECENT comments by Chamber of Mines chief negotiator, Elize Strydom, that she regretted her time at Nedlac (National Economic Development And Labour Council) speak to some of the problems that have been identified in amendments to SA’s Labour Relations Act (LRA).

Strydom said Nedlac, where she worked on negotiating the amendments, was “a charade’, and that she “had wasted [her] time there’.

These comments were made in an interview with Business Times and were principally about failed wage negotiations between the Association of Mineworkers & Construction Union (AMCU) and platinum producers.

Strydom also said the talks were negatively effected by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration’s (CCMA’s) poor understanding of economics and the condition of the SA platinum sector. The wage talks were under the auspices of the CCMA.

According to Melanie Hart, an attorney at Fasken Martineau, Strydom had helped negotiate the introduction of strike ballots in an earlier draft of the LRA Amendment Bill. It was subsequently removed from the Act, but the feeling now is that such curbs on the right to strike would be beneficial.

Department of Labour acting deputy director-general, Thembi-Nkosi Mkalipi told Business Day on March 24 that the government had submitted a proposal to business and labour representatives in Nedlac to hold a labour relations indaba addressing recent challenges.

At roughly the same time, labour minister, Mildred Oliphant suggested in parliament that a “holistic, situational analysis of the labour market’ ought to be discussed at such an indaba. Some restrictions on striking unions should be discussed.

Ballots help establish whether union members really want to strike whereas the current modus operandi is for union leaders, such as Association of Mineworkers & Construction Union (AMCU’s) Joseph Mathunjwa to openly poll support for a strike. The weaknesses of this system are for all to see.

Said Hart: “The removal of hard-won amendments certaintly contextualises the statements which Ms Strydom has made about her time spent at Nedlac’. She added there were other “possible solutions that may have a salutary effect on the industrial relations environment within the mining sector’.

A requirement for strike certificates that expired after a certain period of time after which arbitration becomes mandatory is one of the possible solutions, said Hart.

“Alternatively, that the Labour Court be given the power to declare otherwise lawful strikes unlawful where the strike is accompanied by acts of violence or is in support of demands which are demonstrable as being unattainable and unrelalistic,’ Hart said.