Union ruling ‘will fuel chaos’
Labour experts say Constitutional Court judgment on organisational rights will be problematic in workplaces
A Constitutional Court ruling that has reinforced the organisational rights of minority trade unions in the workplace will lead to chaos and heightened inter-union rivalry. 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. Labour experts have told Business Day that though the judgment handed down on Friday confirmed existing trends, it was problematic. The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) filed an appeal application at the Constitutional Court following a drawn-out battle to revoke the SA Correctional Services Workers Union’s (Sacoswu) recognition at the department of correctional services, where the former is a majority union. The department entered into a collective bargaining agreement with Sacoswu in 2010, giving it rights to represent its members at disciplinary hearings, among others. This was in spite of an existing threshold agreement Popc...
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