Director- General Thobile Lamati: Launch Labour Industrial Action Report 2016

The launch of the Department of Labour Industrial Action Report, 2016

Purpose

Today, I am launching the findings of the strike incidents 2016^[1]. As you are aware, the Department of Labour (DoL) has continually published on its website an annual analysis report of the strike incidents in the country. This is in line with the national and international requirements. The strike report remains a useful piece of up to date information for various stakeholders including government departments, unions, employers, business, international organizations, research institutes, NGO’s and students. The report provides a detailed account of companies affected by work stoppages and disaggregates information by province, duration, industries, nature and reasons of strikes. In this respect, the strikes information analysed is based on the information supplied by the employers in the Labour Relations Act (LRA) Forms 9.2 after the strike incident ended in a particular work place.

The key highlights of Industrial Action Report 2016

It is my pleasure to report on the following key strike results as covered in the Annual Industrial Action report 2016:

• More work stoppages were experienced during the “strike season” that are the second and third quarters of the year. More strikes during this period resulted in more work days lost.
• By nature of strikes, “strikes in company only” were predominantly higher contributing to 56 per cent of strikes that took place in 2016. This was followed by those workers who were locked-out at 26 per cent.
• The South African labour market lost a total of 946 323 working days as a result of 122 work stoppages. This represents a 4.7 per cent increase in working days lost in 2016 as compared to 903 921 days lost in 2015.
• Most of the work stoppages were due to wages, bonus and other compensation demands.
• The time-loss ratio was at 59 working days lost per 1 000 employees.
• A total of 7.6 million working hours were lost in 2016 as compared to a total 8.2 million working hours lost in 2015.
• There were 90 228 workers involved in labour disputes in 2016, the lowest figure since strike records captured in 2013.
• In term of wages lost, the South African labour economy lost approximately R161 million due to work stoppages in 2016 as compared to R116 million in 2015.This reflects an increase of 38.8 per cent in wages lost due to work stoppages.
• Of the nine provinces in the country, some provinces with relatively high performance economic activities had experienced more strikes in all the four quarters of 2016. These provinces are Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces.
• By industry, the community industry was highly affected by strike incidents followed by the manufacturing and transport industries in 2016.
• Establishments with more than 1 000 employees were mostly affected by industrial actions during quarter two and three of 2016 at 41 and 40 per cent respectively.
• As reported by the Labour Research Services, the median wage settlement from various industries in 2016 was close to 8 per cent as compared to 7.4 per cent in 2015.

 Way forward

To address the issue of reducing strikes incidents with regards to wage demands, the Department of Labour stresses that: “possibilities of increasing minimum wages to address poverty and inequality and to expand provision for retirement savings for low income workers will become a sharp focus in the future”.

The report still emphasises the Minister’s concerns around the logic of pursuing strike action to the point where it damages workers’ interests. Either way, South Africa needs to find a solution for the seemingly faltering bargaining structure. Government, unions and business have an important role to play in order to maintain a stable labour force and fair labour practices that will attract investors and inspire economic growth in the long run.

For technical enquiries contact:
Mr Abrahams Mutedi
Tel: 012 309 4145
E-mail: Abrahams.Mutedi@labour.gov.za