Why we need strong Unions? Does an active Trade Union Movement make you feel unhappy? Well, you might be a lot less happy if we had to live without one. This year, as in many past years, strikes have been greeted by familiar attacks on unions and their members. Economists fall over each other to denounce the damage to the economy. And when, as with the petrol refinery strike, the dispute affects citizens directly, many in the public join the chorus of anger at a greedy union movement holding the country to ransom.Anti-Union prejudice has become so common we tend to take for granted that Unions are a problem for the economy. This increasingly common view is based on prejudice, not reality. First; Trade Unions did not invent conflict between employers and the workers. In any economy those work and those for whom they work have differing interests. If workers cannot express their interests through unions, they will find other, more damaging outlets. In our society, a history of racial division and high levels of inequality make it even more likely that workplaces will be disrupted. Trade Unions help make this conflict more manageable because workers have representatives who can bargain on their behalf and settle disputes.
Research conducted in this country shows there is much more damaging conflict in workplaces where unions have lost influence than in those where they are strong.second,the costs of strikes to the economy are usually greatly overstated. Most of the estimates of how much strikes cost put out by economists and readily swallowed by the media are guesses, not science. For example, many ignore the fact that, in factories, much of the production lost through strikes is worked in later. Employers may have to pay overtime, so raising the cost of this production, but the loss is far smaller than the estimates tell us. Nor does anyone bother to try to work out how much money the economy might be saved by the presence of Unions. We may notice the two weeks or so of a major strike-we do not notice or calculate the three or four years or more when there are no strikes in that industry, nor do we consider that unions may be why there is calm most of the time. Third, most commentary assumes managers and owners are always right and workers or unions always wrong. A while ago it was reported that one chief executive here earns over R50m a year and others earn nearly as much. Managers sometimes receive percentage increases well above those which workers get. Surely one reason why we have strikes may that there often seems to be one rule for managers and owners, another for worker. Where are the economists calculating how much we could save if top chief executives earned only, say R25m a year? Surely we need also to ask whether some of our companies are not behaving in ways that cause strikes by telling workers they must sacrifices so managers can continue to beat inflation?. None of this means unions are blameless. Unions here have made errors which must be corrected if they are to play a more effective role. The violence in some strikes this year may be one symptom of a failure by unions t give as much attention as they should to making sure they are well organized. The key to effective Unionism is ensuring leaders are always in touch with members. In strongly organized unions, members have confidence in their leader’s ability to negotiate the best deal for them because they know that their leaders are doing what workers want them to do. When these links weaken, volience may be one result as workers decide they are going to get what they want through bargaining. So the violence may be a wakeup call to union leaders to get back in touch with members and to spend more time and effort on organization. Unions may need also to become more aware of public opinion and the need to stay on the right side of the rest of society. Before the 1990s, Unions did not have to worry much about public opinion: most South Africans were fighting apartheid and so there was an automatic solidarity between the workers who embarked on strikes and the citizens who supported them. But that has not been so for years. Unions cannot be assured of the support of black South Africans today-they need to work for it. Public opinion matters in strikes because the side that loses the battle for public support faces far more pressure than one that has the backing of citizens. But Unions do not work hard at preventing behaviour which upsets citizens, like leaving sick or needy people without help from public servants. As the media were bombarding us with stories of petrol running out at the pumps, where were the campaigns by the Unions aimed at persuading us that the worker’s demands were just? By Prof. Steven Friedman is Director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at Rhodes University and University of Johannesburg -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] .
