SOUTH Africa must find a solution for its seemingly faltering bargaining structures, while government, unions and business all have a role to play in maintaining a stable labour force and fair labour practices.
These are the findings of a Department of Labour (DoL) industrial action report on last year’s strike incidents.
More work stoppages were experienced during 2016’s ‘strike season’ – the year’s second and third quarters – resulting in the loss of more work days compared with 2015.
Most work stoppages related to wages, bonus and other compensation demands, and involved more than 90 000 employees, leading to 59 working days being lost per 1 000 employees.
In total, the SA labour market lost a total of 946 323 working days as a result of 122 work stoppages.
This represents a 4.7% increase in working days lost in 2016, compared with 903 921 days lost in 2015.
While these figures are high, the number of workers involved in labour disputes in 2016 was the lowest since strike records were first captured in 2013.
Although the number of working hours lost in 2016 – 7.6-million – is lower than 2015’s loss of 8.2-million working hours, the country’s labour economy lost more in terms of wages than in 2015 – R161-million lost in 2016 compared to R116-million lost in 2015).
This is an increase of 38.8% in wages lost owing to work stoppages.
The DoL report goes on to say that of the country’s nine provinces, those with high performance economic activities – KZN and Gauteng – experienced more strikes in all four quarters of 2016.
It was found that establishments with more than 1 000 employees were mostly affected by industrial action during quarters two and three last year, at 41% and 40% respectively.
As reported by the Labour Research Services, the median wage settlement from various industries in 2016 was close to 8% compared to 7.4% in 2015.
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