In the period between 1980 and 1985 the pattern of repression against trade unions has changed, reflecting an apparent shift in the state's strategy towards labour.
Following the report of the Wiehahn Commission which appeared in 1979, legislation was passed which allowed trade unions with predominantly African membership to register for the first time. By registering they could participate in the official collective bargaining machinery on the same basis as other unions. Most of the independent African unions however refused to register to avoid the controls involved. They would have had to submit internal financial records and constitutions to the Industrial Registrar, and been prohibited from affiliating to political groupings.
Between 1980 and 1982 the state attempted to force unions to register by detaining leadership and members of the unions resisting registration (FCWU, GWU and SAAWU). Unions affiliated to FOSATU and CUSA which did register were relatively unaffected.
With the sustained growth of both registered and unregistered unions representing African workers and an increased trend among employers to recognise unregistered unions in the face of widespread strikes, the state abandoned these tactics. The Labour Relations Act was amended in 1981, bringing unregistered unions under the same controls as formally registered unions.
Between 1982 and 1985 the state increasingly withdrew from direct intervention in the sphere of industrial relations, seeking to avoid politicising shop floor issues. An Industrial Court was set up to establish a set of fair employment practices which aimed to reduce the range of issues around which disputes might arise.
Strikes remain illegal in terms of current legislation. However, instances of direct police intervention in disputes have fluctuated since 1980. The level of intervention remains high in disputes on the mines, but has declined in manufacturing industry. In proportion to the number of workers involved in strikes each year, the vast majority of which were illegal, the number charged with illegally striking has been relatively small. (SAIRR Survey of Race Relations 1983, p.200; Cit 20.2.85)
The number of strikers convicted after being charged has also been small. In the last two years, arrests of workers on charges of illegally striking have been confined largely to essential services, where the state has actively sought to undermine organisation, and to the mines. The provisions of the Intimidation Act, passed in 1982, have not been widely used against unionists.
The state's strategy since 1981 therefore appears to have been to move towards legalisation and to allow the sphere of industrial relations to be regulated by unions and employers. It has intervened with repressive action only where unions have embarked on political activity beyond the shop floor.
Between 1981 and 1983 most major industrial disputes centred on the refusal of employers to negotiate with unions at plant level, where individual union structures are strongest. They attempted to force the independent African unions to bargain through the Industrial Councils – industry-wide structures often weighted in favour of employers and white unions.
The onset of a serious and deepening recession at the end of 1982, however, compromised the ability of unions to sustain trials of strength against employers who resorted to retrenchment and mass dismissals of workers taking strike action. Unions pursued more cautious strategies and there was a parallel process of greater recourse to institutions created within the official bargaining machinery to resolve disputes.
In 1984 and 1985 as the number of strikes increased around demands for higher wages, new union strategies began to evolve aimed at countering employer tactics against workers. During 1985 and the first five months of 1986 there were reports in the press of worker occupations of factory premises on at least nine occasions in the form of sit-ins and sleep-ins, including one which occurred underground in a mine. (See OTHER POLITICAL TRIALS) These were devised to prevent employers from locking out workers and dismissing them en masse.
In spite of the reduction in the level of direct state intervention in disputes, key aspects of the state's overall strategy towards labour remain in place. These centre on the repression of unions which have become involved in broader political activity. The trend (seen in 1981/2 with a major clampdown on unions involved in political campaigns) has continued. (See FOCUS Briefing Paper No.9, Nov. 1983, p.3)
Repression of worker organisations in the bantustans and the continued exclusion of agricultural and domestic workers from trade union rights are also continuing trends. These strategies complement the state's policy in other spheres, notably influx control and allocation of housing. Greater freedom of movement, access to housing and collective bargaining rights have been afforded workers permanently in the urban areas, employed largely in manufacture, at the expense of workers located in the bantustans and rural areas. Dividing the workforce along these lines remains the main focus of state policy.
Even in the case of KwaZulu and Bophuthatswana, where legislation providing for unionisation of workers has been created, effective worker organisation remains proscribed in the bantustans. In the Bophuthatswana bantustan, unions based outside the territory are prohibited from operating within its borders and SAAWU has been banned in the Ciskei and Transkei bantustans. In KwaZulu a new union UWUSA, which is closely linked to the bantustan authorities, has been set up. Workers are being forced to join this union and affiliates of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) have come under attack.
The restrictions on union activity in the bantustans have the potential to undermine sections of the labour movement. The labour force of the Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereening (PWV), Durban and East London areas are all dependent on significant proportions of commuters resident in the bantustans.
During the second half of 1984 and in 1985 the number of trade unionists detained without trial rose significantly – from 28 in 1983 to 51 in 1984 and 170 in 1985, 124 of which occurred in terms of emergency regulations. The detentions reflect the extent to which trade unions have been drawn into community struggles, notably UMAWUSA, MACWUSA, SAAWU and the larger industrially based unions in FOSATU. Up until 1984 FOSATU avoided involvement in broader political campaigns, concentrating instead on consolidating their in-plant structures. Whereas FOSATU unions were relatively unaffected by detentions between 1981 and 1983, one fifth of unionists reported detained in the press in 1984 were members of FOSATU affiliates. In 1984 FOSATU affiliates participated in the campaign to boycott elections for the segregated parliament and actively supported the November stayaway in the PWV region. In some areas of the country FOSATU unions have become actively involved in the leadership of local community organisations and in organising consumer boycotts. Similarly, in 1985 just over one tenth of detainees reported detained under security legislation in the press were FOSATU affiliates as were just under a third of unionists detained under emergency regulations.
