10 July 2009
editorial
Johannesburg — IF WORKERS in the steel industry, say, were to go on strike tomorrow, their employers would probably be delighted. A strike would be just the thing to save on wage costs and to reduce stocks: in commodity industries such as steel, where global and local demand for the product continues to languish, employers might well be able to sit out a very long strike.
Trades unions surely know this. And that, no doubt, is one of the reasons we are seeing a wave of industrial action in the sectors where labour can afford to strike -- not where it can't.
Though we tend to forget it each year, this is strike season in SA, with wage rounds in various sectors generally coming to a head in about midwinter. But though trade unions and employers in the gold and coal industries, for example, have yet to agree on wages, there's little talk there of strike action. There have, however, been threats of industrial action at public entities such as Eskom and the SABC, not to mention (again) by teachers.
And of course there's the construction workers' strike, which is targeted specifically at 2010 World Cup projects, from soccer stadiums to airports to roads to the Gautrain. As often in strikes like this, the motives are probably a blend of the political and the economic. Politically, trade union federation Cosatu needs to show right now that it has clout. Bringing members out on strike is the best way to do that.
And by targeting World Cup construction sites it achieves maximum impact with minimum risk. With less than a year to go to the tournament, these projects have to be completed. Employers can't sit it out for long, nor are they likely to try to get rid of striking workers. What's more, this is of national importance, so everyone from the labour minister to the 2010 Local Organising Committee gets involved, all of which has raised the profile of the strike even further.
That's not to say that this is simply a political strike. The construction workers have genuine grievances. Like their peers in other industries where it would be more risky to strike, these workers have seen their pay packets eroded by the high inflation of the past year or two, and particularly by the sharp hikes in the prices of food and energy.
In theory, trade unions should be negotiating wages with an eye to the future and not the past, but in practice their demands tend to be backward-looking. In any event, though inflation is expected to come down in the next few months, labour's expectations, according to the latest Bureau for Economic Research survey, are that inflation will remain quite high, averaging 9,7% this year and 10,1% next year.
It may seem outrageous that, with inflation now down to 8%, the National Union of Mineworkers rejected the construction employers' offer of a 10,4% increase and demanded 13%. And the increases will add significantly to the already substantial bill that SA will have to foot to host the World Cup.
From the union's perspective, however, such increases probably don't seem that excessive.
Nonetheless, any victory could prove pyrrhic. Even once SA's economy recovers, it's not expected to grow particularly fast. After 2010, there may not be any more big construction projects for a good while. Workers should take care they don't find themselves with better pay -- but no work.
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