Contemptible actions
CARMEL RICKARD: Contemptible actions
Strikes are often very violent in SA, and it’s time that companies change tack to hold unions responsible for the damage
Violence around strikes is a huge and growing problem. That much is clear from labour court judgments in which there is regular evidence of what a judge last week called “barbaric and violent actions” strewn like buckshot across the pages. Court orders that strikers may not engage in violence are often ignored. One judge speaks of how it is “not uncommon” for a court to hear that when its orders were served on the strikers, they did not accept them, “or threw them to the ground and trampled on them”. This week’s decision by judge Anton Steenkamp concerning a strike in Atlantis, near Cape Town, had particular force. The labour action at GRI Wind Steel SA involved members and leaders of the Association of Mineworkers & Construction Union (Amcu), and though it was a protected strike, it quickly deteriorated. Strikers blockaded entrances and exits, set tyres alight and prevented nonstriking workers from entering, brandishing knobkerries, hammers and steel bars. They assaulted and threat...
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