Labour Law | The ins and outs of striking

By Anna Malczyk

If you are interested in this topic, take a look at our University of Cape Town (Law@Work) Practical Labour Law course.

With transport strikes affecting the nation on a regular basis, it is important to understand why workers go on strike and what the effects of this are on individuals and the economy. Here is a brief overview of striking in general, followed by the effects of transport strikes.

What is striking?
Striking, also called “collective labour action”, is an agreement by workers in a certain industry to stop working for a specific length of time, or until a certain condition is met. Strikes are usually organised by trade unions after negotiations with employers fail to produce the demands made by the workers. A lesser form or protest is a “go slow” or “slowdown”, in which employees work more slowly than usual and reduce the company’s productivity or efficiency.

Why does it happen?
Strikes can happen for a wide variety of reasons related to working conditions, and always occur when workers feel that something unfair is happening. One of the most common causes for striking is to protest unfairly low wage or salary increases, especially when they are below the inflation rate. Workers can also strike to improve their working conditions (if, for example, safety standards are very low or harmful processes are being use unnecessarily), to petition for shorter working hours, to protest unequal treatment or actions by the company (the managers getting a large bonus while workers get no raises), or even to protest against the company’s political, social or environmental policies.

When is it allowed?
Strikes come in two varieties – protected and unprotected. Protected strikes are legal and occur when employees follow all the procedures laid out in the Labour Relations Act to have their demands met. Employees who take part in protected strikes may not be dismissed, sued or considered to be in breach of their employee contracts.

Unprotected strikes are those that occur when employees do not follow the procedures of the Labour Relations Act, and employees who participate in them are not protected from dismissal. However, fairness and reason prevail, and the circumstances must be taken into account before an employee is dismissed.

What are the consequences?
Transport strikes in the past have had serious effects on individuals and the economy as a whole. Since goods are not being transported around the country, important resources like fuel, cash for ATMs and good in supermarkets run low. The unfortunate reality in South Africa is that strikes sometimes involve violence like assaults, looting, destruction of property and intimidation of non-striking workers. Transport strikes also have ripple effects on the economy that will only be felt later; companies that lose sales and customers because they are unable to transport their goods may need to retrench or lower wages in future.

This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution license.