MARIKANA - Government, trade unions and labour analysts agree that the country’s labour relations have stabilised, to a great extent, since the deadly Marikana strike 10 years ago.
August 10 marks the tenth anniversary of the second day of the unprotected action that saw thousands of mineworkers descend upon Wonderkop, a large rock, or koppie as it is known in South Africa, that is now a monument of a calamity that will forever represent the collapse of centralised collective bargaining.
By this day a decade ago, several mineworkers had already been injured in shootings or killed as intimidation of workers who reported for duty was the order of the day.
There have since been shifts in the labour regulations, mostly brought on by the judiciary through several judgments in disputes that make many comfortable that violent, deadly strikes of Marikana’s magnitude are well behind us.
A common roar in the South African labour market signifying workers’ fight for improved wages and conditions.
They would carry knobkerries, a short stick with a knob at the top, among other options in their stock of weapons.
This is no longer a prominent feature of strikes in the country and chief director of labour relations at the Employment and Labour Department, Thembinkosi Mkhaliphi, explains why.
"We've also published a code of good practice on industrial action indicating what is allowable and what is not allowable and the idea there was that this code will be taken through to all companies by the CCMA, we'd be able to take them through to workshop," Mkhaliphi said.
There have also been adjustments to who can call for a strike. Albeit the provision has since been challenged in the courts, ironically by Amcu, which sided with the Marikana mineworkers in 2012 and swelled in size in the aftermath as a result.
"After Marikana, we amended the law to factor in on the right to strike, limit the right to strike a litlle bit to ensure that there is a secret ballot before the strike," Mkhaliphi said.
However, some of the most fundamental changes have come from the judiciary.
A 2018 judgment of the Constitutional Court decided in favour of minority trade unions’ right to take part in collective bargaining, emphasising that they should not be limited to threshold agreements entered into by bosses and large unions.
Mining labour analyst, Mamokgethi Molopyane expands on this further: "What I thought was such a clear ruling in the recent Numsa court case is that the judge had emphasised that no longer because it seems that union leaders had forgotten that the role of the unions is to serve the members, so no longer must it be seen that the unions serve the whims and interests and desires and ambitions of leaders who want to ascend to higher offices or do something more to stay in power forever but ultimately it's about the interest of the workers."
The greatest achievement for the mineworkers who were forced to live with the wounds of the Marikana strike and massacre by police a decade ago, has been improved wages with labour stability and peace paramount for many.
However, their quest to earn more than R12,500 was only realised after the historic 2014 five-month-long strike in the platinum sector.
