By Gideon du Plessis*
It is worth noting that when burning labour relations issues are dealt with at a trade union federation-, business- and at government leadership level, most players at that level have not been involved in labour relations disputes of late, or they have not previously been involved in such disputes but they always claim that a masterly solution had been negotiated. As a result, an agreement is announced with great fanfare in the media, but the next day the labour relations battles rage on in the workplace because that is where labour relations primarily play out.
With the general trade union environment, Cosatu, and the ruling party all being in disarray, employers should seize the opportunity to stabilise labour relations at workplace level without fear of high level interference. Also worth noting is that when it comes to labour disputes the local structures of certain populist trade unions want to act more independently and without interference from their headquarters. For example, Amcu members nowadays often show Amcu leadership the door at workplaces with the message that decisions would be taken at branch level. A statement made by former US politician Tip O’Neill that “all politics is local,” rings true in the labour relations environment of today.
As is the case with #FeesMustFall, labour relations are complicated and are characterised by hidden agendas, and if employers want to restore the balance of power and labour peace at shop floor level, they will have to negotiate smarter, but they will also have to understand the deep-seated dynamics behind labour relations.
Wage negotiations constitute the most routine labour relations process, but few employers and analysts realise what lurks behind a populist trade union’s wage demands – unrealistic wage demands are rarely the result of poor workers’ expectations for a better life, or the use of an obsolete “Chinese bargaining” model for negotiations; rather, they arise from the high expectations trade union officials create with their own agenda in mind. Among other things, populist trade unions negotiate wage increases to increase their income given that 1% of workers’ wages are paid to the union in the form of membership fees. This means the trade union’s revenue from membership fees increases according to the percentage by which union members’ wages increase – now that is rather capitalist, comrades!
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Otherwise, trade unions try to poach members from the opposition by coming up with a wage demand that is higher than that of the other trade union, which usually makes a huge impression on illiterate employees. It also happens that when a trade union’s leadership election is preceded by wage negotiations, trade union officials want to increase their chances for re-election by putting forward exorbitant wage demands.
In response to unrealistic wage demands employers make the same mistake university managements and the Minister of Higher Education are now making with #FeesMustFall, and that is not to simply say “No” when a demand cannot be entertained. When an unrealistic claim is entertained it creates an expectation that the demand can indeed materialise, giving rise to goalposts being moved even further due to further demands that are being put on the table. The violence that follows is not because of the “No”, but the result of a deeply rooted societal and political problem.
What is also beyond understanding is that employers do not come with counter-demands during wage negotiations. Workplace absenteeism and low productivity are major challenges as far as employers are concerned, but employers usually do not link their wage offer to a counter-performance in the form of a production target, or adherence to an absenteeism policy to address those problems. Employers should also be more daring by linking an affordable wage increase offer to a moratorium on retrenchments or a job creation programme which, given the current high unemployment conditions, would strongly appeal to trade unions.
Another mistake major employers make during wage negotiations is that their CEOs enter the fray and their HR negotiating team lose its status and authority as a result. As a precedent has thus been created, trade unions then demand that wage dispute negotiations carry on with the executives. In this way, trade unions achieve key breakthroughs because although CEOs can negotiate complex commercial contracts, they do not always grasp the dynamics of a wage dispute and they do not have the patience and intuition it takes to resolve it.
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During wage negotiations many employers also lose sight of the fact that trade union members are in fact their employees and that nothing prevents them from communicating directly with their employees to explain their position. During trade union mass meetings workers are usually presented with a distorted picture of the negotiations especially when union leaders are spoiling for a strike that will give them and the trade union good media coverage and, for those who are too young to have participated in the real freedom struggle that preceded 1994, it creates an opportunity to boost their struggle credentials.
A further weakness of employers has to do with the way in which they deal with unprotected strikes and workplace violence, which have increased since Marikana. To the detriment of workers and moderate trade unions few employers have the guts to sue militant trade unions for damages and production losses and to dismiss employees guilty of gross misconduct – the balance of power is therefore not restored.
The power struggle between trade unions that creates tension both in the negotiating process and on the outside can be defused if the undemocratic majoritarian principle that applies to trade union recognition is scrapped. To link certain privileges and benefits to a trade union’s representativeness, merely causes rivalry which not only creates tension in the workplace but also leads to loss of life. The time and energy employers waste to negotiate trade union recognition agreements could much rather be used to negotiate protocols for negotiations.
Finally, a lesson employers should take from the mistakes universities have made, is to never stop dialogue with trade unions in a more relaxed atmosphere outside the formal negotiating phase when it comes to dealing with brewing issues or unfinished business. That is how you prevent burning issues from flaring up all of a sudden or an outstanding issue becoming a matter of principle at a later stage.
- Gideon du Plessis is Solidarity’s General Secretary.
