The Presidency wishes to correct media reports on comments attributed to Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa regarding strike ballots. Speaking at a breakfast interaction with the Press Gallery Association in Cape Town on Thursday 24 July, Deputy President Ramaphosa was asked his view on strike ballots.
Contrary to some media reports, Deputy President did not suggest that legislation would be amended to make strike ballots compulsory.
Speaking on his experience as a union leader in the 1980s, he said: “The advantage for unions is that it is a mobilising tool and the advantage to employers is to show that the workers are determined to win their demands and they are deadly serious so it’s a vote that should indicate certain things to employers as well as to workers. So I’m hugely in support of that.”
Answering a separate question on whether legislation governing strikes should be amended, the Deputy President said: “The Ministry of Labour is beginning to think through a number of things. And I think in the end they will want to discuss all that with their social partners, i.e. in view of lengths of strikes that we have seen, should there be an arbitration process? And that is a matter that needs to be debated. It needs to be debated with labour; it needs to be debated with various social partners in NEDLAC. So it’s something that has to be approached with care, with discussion, with thorough consultation.
(Enclosed for information is a transcript copy of Deputy President Ramaphosa’s response on the subject of strike ballots.)
Transcript:
“When I was a trade unionist we used to follow the apartheid labour relations laws almost to the letter. Before we went on a strike, our members would participate in a strike ballot. And a strike ballot was quite effective even in those days, because it was a mobiliser. We used it as a tool to mobilise workers who clearly indicated their determination to advocate for their demands. So we had workers on the mines, many of them who had not really gone to school.
We put them through an education process to vote, to vote for a strike. And we ourselves printed the pieces of paper, ballot papers we call them where they could put their mark yes or no and they knew what it meant, and they were written in various languages as well. So, that we took as a matter of cause, as a matter of behaviour - that when you want to go on a legal strike you needed to embark on a process.
But lo and behold those days there was no protection, even if workers had gone through this rigorous process of governance of participating in a ballot, there was no protection against being dismissed. Which was kind of lopsided and hugely unfair to workers and I remember in the 1987 strike when hundreds of thousands of workers participated in the strike- 340 000 and 50 000 got fired even though they participated in a legal strike. So I would take a strike ballot as a normal type of process in the governance of strikes. That, yes workers should participate in a strike ballot process to signify their intention to go and strike.
The advantage for unions is that it is a mobilising tool and the advantage to employers is to show that the workers are determined to win their demands and they are deadly serious so it’s a vote that should indicate certain things to employers as well as to workers. So I’m hugely in support of that.
There is a question that follows on that before I come to the minimum wage one, should strike laws be tweaked? The Ministry of Labour is beginning to think through a number of things. And I think in the end they will want to discuss all that with their social partners i.e. in view of lengths of strikes that we have seen, should there be an arbitration process?
And that is a matter that needs to be debated. It needs to be debated with labour; it needs to be debated with various social partners in NEDLAC. So it’s something that has to be approached with care, with discussion, with thorough consultation. And in the end unionists will tell you that it should in no way begin to dilute or to minimise the rights they have enshrined in the constitution- in the right to strike that workers won after so many struggles.
That right that is enshrined in the constitution is something that working people particularly in their organised formations such as Cosatu will want to guard against the dilution very, very strongly. So yes it is something that needs to be looked at. But, in the end I think, it’s a process that everyone should participate in.”
Enquiries:
Ronnie Mamoepa
Spokesperson to the Deputy President
Cell: 082 990 4853
