Download Sociological, economic and political factors

Alan Rycroft
University of Cape Town
[email protected]
Violence and
dismissals in the strike
context
The context
• 181 people killed in strike violence in SA in
the past 13 years.
• At least 313 people were injured
• More than 3 058 were arrested for public
violence.
• 1 377 people arrested between 1 Jan 2009
and 31 July 2011
• 217 cases of public violence made it to court
• 9 people were convicted.
Sociological, economic and
political factors
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Inequality in South Africa increased in the
period 1995-2005
Service delivery protests speak of poverty,
frustration and conflict over scare resources
A 'culture of violence‘’
The anatomy of one strike
FAWU obo Kapesi & 31 others v Premier
Foods Limited
• Houses of non-strikers firebombed, ransacked
• Cars and possessions set alight
• A female employee, dragged from her home at
night, assaulted with pangas and sjamboks
• A witness was shot & killed
• Money collected to assassinate Director
• Company’s main witness disappeared
Assumptions implicit in SA
strike law
• An inseparable link between collective
bargaining and the right to strike
• A strike must be orderly
• The strike must not involve misconduct
The failure of the ‘Golden
Formula’
1. Refer a dispute the CCMA or BC for
conciliation.
2. The CCMA or BC must issue a
certificate that dispute remains
unresolved, or a period of 30 days has
elapsed.
3. At least 48 hours notice of the
commencement of the strike must be
given to the employer.
Success rate of CCMA
• CCMA conciliation - 57% success rate in
interest disputes
• ie in 43% of mutual interest disputes the
failure in conciliation allowed the parties to
proceed to industrial action.
• Progress in s 150 intervention in strikes –
cohort of trained conciliators available.
What the law offers
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Interdict
Prosecution for contempt of court
Damages
Withdrawal of protection
Prosecution for criminal offences
Police or army control
The strike dynamic
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the strike as protest
the strike as warfare
the strike as stratagem
the strike as group process
the strike as organizational change
(Nicholson & Kelly (1980)
Psychological factors
frustration & acute deprivation
anger
aggression and violence
• There are three features of strikes which can
be perceived in this way:
• the intransigent employer
• the presence of police
• the existence of non-strikers
The role of the police
The role of non-strikers &
scabs
Mob theory – le Bon
• Authorisation
• Routinisation
• Dehumanisation
Courts in SA, since the 1990s, have
accepted conformity, obedience, group
polarization, deindividuation, bystander
apathy, and other psychological
phenomena as extenuating factors
The power of the toyi-toyi
In the tradition of the antiapartheid struggle
Criticism of mob theory
Reicher: ‘individuals do not lose identity in
the crowd but rather shift from personal
identity (what makes me as an individual
distinctive from other individuals)
to social identity (what makes my group
distinctive compared to other groups)…
they do not lose values and standards but
rather shift to acting in terms of the values
and standards associated with the relevant
group’
Is there a different approach?
• A shift from positional to mutual gain
negotiation
• Joint training in modern negotiation
theory and practice.
• Use of an independent and trusted
facilitator from the outset
• A proper analysis of the problem
before moving on to seek and evaluate
potential solutions.
• Delaying the mandating
process until after the problem
analysis stage.
• Pre-negotiation meeting for problem
analysis, issue identification, interest
exploration and solution search
• The use of small task teams to promote
lateral & creative thinking
• Encourage thinking about possible trade
offs across issues
• A working document which ‘grows’ from the
commencement of the negotiation into the
final agreement at its conclusion - to record
and reflect progress in the negotiations
• Strategies to counter bad faith negotiation
and to curb strike related violence
The End?