• The South African population will increase to more than 80m in 20 years, according to estimates published in the white paper on population development.
• As a result of AIDS, average life expectancy is likely to fall from 60 years to 40 by 2008, the minister for welfare and population development, Ms Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, said.
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
BIRD’S EYE VIEW
The year under review was characterised by a steep increase in the number of mandays lost as a result of industrial action. According to Andrew Levy and Associates, a labour consultancy, most strikes were triggered by wage disputes. The chemical and motor industries were affected most by industrial action.
The period under review also saw the first sympathy strike under the Labour Relations Act of 1995.
The months July to September 1999 were characterised by strikes in the public sector. Workers were dissatisfied with the government’s offer of a 5.7% wage increase. Public sector unions affiliated to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) initially demanded 15% but dropped their demands to 8.3% for teachers and 7.3% for other public servants. No agreement was reached and in August 1999 the government unilaterally implemented a 7% raise for teachers and the lowest paid workers, and 6.3% for the rest of the public service.1 [1 The Citizen 7 August 1999; The Star Business Report 19 August 1999; Business Day 9 September 1999; The Star 24 August 1999; The Citizen 31 July 1999]
The minister for public service and administration, Ms Geraldine FraseMoleketi, explained that rising personnel costs had put it beyond the ability of the government to contemplate further salary increases.
Personnel costs had risen because of an increase in the number of public service employees gaining access to benefits and allowances since 1994.
These strikes were significant because they transcended racial boundaries. Unions representing mostly white employees joined strike action alongside Cosatu affiliated public sector unions, which represented mostly black eployees.
Industrial action resulted in the loss of 3.8m workdays in 1998, according to the Department of Labour.
However, Andrew Levy and Associates placed the figure at 3.2m mandays lost. In the first nine months of 1999, 2.5m madays were lost as a result of industrial action, with strikes in the public service
accounting for 64% of mandays lost, according to Andrew Levy and Associates. In the same period in 1998, 1.85m mandays were lost.2 [2 Department of Labour, Industrial Action in 1998: Annual Report; Business Day 7 September 1999; Business Day 29 September 1999]
The number of cases handled by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) continued to increase in 1998/99. Although the settlement rate improved, the CCMA faced a backlog as a result of the increasing caseload. According to the director of the CCMA, Ms Thandi Orleyn, the commission was taking 60 days to hear a case, as opposed to the 30 day period required by the Labour Relations Act of 1995. In September 1999 the minister of labour, Mr Membathisi Mdladlana, criticised employers and trade unions for referring minor disputes, which could have been handled within existing bargaining structures, to the CCMA. Labour analysts sugested that access to the CCMA was too easy and that a new mechanism should be created to weigh the merits of each case before it was referred to the commission.
Registered union membership increased by 11% in 1998. Union mebership showed a steady increase from 1995, according to the Department of Labour. The period under review saw the formation of ‘super unions’—the merger of unions which organise in the same industries—in the transport and chemical sectors. This followed a call by Cosatu to consolidate power and eliminate interunion rivalry.
At the end of February 1999 the Industrial Court closed down. The Labour Relations Act of 1995 provided for the establishment of the Labour Court and the phasing out of the Industrial Court. Some 300 cases which had not been finalised by the Industrial Court were transferred to the CCMA.
The Labour Relations Amendment Act of 1998 gave bargaining councils the authority to grant
exemptions from agreements to non-parties. (A collective agreement may be extended to an employer who is not party to that agreement. The non-party may apply for exemption from that agreement.) Previously an independent body had the power to grant exemptions and dtermine the terms of those exemptions. The independent body would in future be one of appeal.
The period under review also saw Cosatu call for the amendment of section 189 of the Labour Relations Act. This section obliges the employer, when considering dismissals based on operational requirements, to consult the parties involved.3 [3 Labour Relations Act No 66 of 1995, Government Gazette no 1681, 13 December 1995;
The Star 18 September 1999] Cosatu said that the act should be amended so that retrenchments would involve mandatory negotiations instead of only consutation.
Debate on the flexibility of the South African labour market continued. During the period under review, a report by the International Labour Organisation on the effects of globalisation in South Africa, found that South Africa’s labour market was too flexible when compared with other middlincome countries.
Labour laws regulating dismissals, working conditions, and contracts were, by international comparison, not too rigid. The report stated that the low level of investment, and not an inflexible labour market, was to blame for high unemployment. On the other hand, organised business called for the revision of labour laws, stating that business development, and consequently job creation, were being hampered by
stringent labour statutes. Labour laws were overly prescriptive and imposed obligations on parties that were better left to collective agreement and local regulation, according to the outgoing director general of the South African Chamber of Business, Mr Raymond Parsons. Furthermore, international investors were discouraged by the rigidity of the South African labour market, he said.
KEY POINTS
• Registered trade union membership increased by 11% in 1998, according to the Department of Labour.
• Between 1995 and 1998 registered union membership steadily increased from 2.7m to 3.8m.
• Although the number of registered trade unions more than doubled between 1992 and 1998, actual membership increased by only 31%. In 1998 registered union membership as a proportion of the
economically active population was 26%, while in 1992 it was 21%.
• The Congress of South African Trade Unions accounted for 46% of regitered union membership in 1998, followed by the Federation of Unions of South Africa (14%) and the National Council of Trade Unions (8%).
• Andrew Levy and Associates reported that nominal wage increases negtiated at centralised and plant- level bargaining structures averaged 8.6% in 1998. This was a slight drop on the 1997 figure.
• In the 14 years between 1985 and 1998 the average level of wage settlments was below the inflation rate only three times.
• The average minimum wage across surveyed industries in the non-agricutural sector (excluding domestic workers) was calculated at R1 885 a month, compared with R1 680 in 1997—an increase of 12% in nominal terms.
• The number of cases handled by the Commission for Conciliation, Medition and Arbitration (CCMA) increased by 29% to some 38 432 in 1998. The number settled rose by two percentage points.
• In 1998 some 27 000 employers were subject to bargaining council agrements. The conditions of employment of some 1.1m workers were regulted by such agreements in 1998.
• The number of disputes referred to bargaining councils more than doubled in 1998.
• Between 11th May 1998 (when collective agreements under the Labour Relations Act commenced) and 15th April 1999, 94 collective agreements concluded in bargaining councils were extended to non- parties.
• Mandays lost as a result of industrial action increased by 254% in 1998, Andrew Levy and Associates reported. The 2.3m mandays lost in 1998 was the highest number since 1994, when 3.9m mandays were lost.
• Some 2.5m mandays were lost as a result of industrial action in the first nine months of 1999, Andrew Levy and Associates said.
• Wage disputes triggered some 97% of strikes in 1998, the highest propotion in eight years.
• The main industries affected by industrial action in 1998 were chemicals (36%), and automobiles (28%).