[miningmx.com] — THE year’s round of wage negotiations is almost done, and it would seem as if it went down much better this time than last year.
As a reminder of last year’s events, the department of labour earlier this week issued its annual report on collective bargaining in 2010; far too late to be of any use, but at least it became available.
Director-General Nkosinathi Nhleko, a far more calmer and level-headed official than his predecessor Jimmy Manyi, promised that this year’s report would be available prior to the start of 2012’s collective bargaining season.
The report confirms that 2010 was one of the most difficult years for collective bargaining in recent history, with the economy losing 20.6 million work days.
The bulk of these losses can be attributed to public services and local authorities, contributing 18.8 million of the lost days after a month-long strike.
Fortunately, things look somewhat different this year.
Until June, wage settlements outside the public sector were virtually all above 8% – much the same as last year, when the average wage settlements were 8.2%. The strike in the steel and engineering industry early in July led to an agreement of 8% to 10%, but only after an intensive week-long strike that resulted in fuel shortages in certain areas.
The first large settlement under 8% was in the gold mines, where increases of 7.5% to 8% in skilled-job categories were agreed on. Collieries went on strike, and in the end increases of between 8% and 10% were granted.
An irony of this strike was that trade union members more than made up for the wages lost during the strike by overtime work, which the collieries needed in order to make up the lost production.
“They earned more money in August than in any other month this year,’ said a union leader who didn’t want to be named.
Solidarity’s deputy general secretary Gideon Du Plessis said it’s clear that trade unions realised they can negotiate their members out of jobs. This is especially true for gold mining- a shrinking section of the industry, despite the record gold prices of the past two years.
“There are quite a few trade unions that saw their membership falling this year,’ Du Plessis said. He said union members have started to accept single-digit increases.
Public servants were also weary of striking after last year’s long strike – some of them have still not yet paid back all the debt they ran up because of the loss of income.
This will not necessarily happen again next year.
The ANC’s Mangaung conference in December 2012 to celebrate its 100th anniversary in the midst of serious divisions in the party and debates in the ANC-Cosatu-SACP alliance on issues like nationalisation and the role of the State in a mixed economy will no doubt make itself felt in the workplace, especially the public service.
– Sake24
