BusinessLive reports that a Constitutional Court (ConCourt) ruling that has reinforced the organisational rights of minority trade unions in the workplace was problematic and would lead to chaos and heightened inter-union rivalry according to some labour experts.  

Organisational rights refer to access to workplaces for union organisers, the deduction of union subscriptions from employees’ wages and time off for trade union activities.  The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) filed an appeal at the ConCourt following a drawn-out battle to revoke the SA Correctional Services Workers Union’s (Sacoswu’s) recognition at the Department of Correctional Services (DCS), where the former is a majority union.  The DCS entered into a collective bargaining agreement with Sacoswu in 2010, inter alia giving it rights to represent its members at disciplinary hearings.  This was in spite of an existing threshold agreement Popcru had with the employer since 2001, barring the admission of unions with fewer than 9,000 members to the DCS bargaining council.  Sacoswu only had 1,500 members then.  The ConCourt dismissed Popcru’s appeal and said the DCS was not precluded from concluding a collective agreement on organisational rights with Sacoswu while its threshold agreement with Popcru was still operational.  The provisions of the Labour Relations Act in question have also undergone some changes since the matter first arose.  

Labour consultant Tony Healy commented on the ruling:  "It promotes the proliferation of unions in a single workplace and can, depending on how far it goes, at best destabilise a workplace or wreak havoc."

• Read this report by Theto Mahlakoana in full at BusinessLive
• Read a media summary as well as the full ConCourt judgment at ConCourt Judgments
• Read Saftu’s perspective on the judgment at Saftu News

Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page