AMCU loses long-running labour court battle

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Section 23 extensions

According to director in the employment practice at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, Fiona Leppan, the decision finds favour with a provision in the Labour Relations Act (LRA) which allows collective agreements, concluded outside a bargaining council, between the employer and majority union at the workplace or at enterprise level, to be extended to bind non-unionised employees and any minority unions that are not party to such an agreement. These are known as s23 extensions.

Single workplace

AMCU argued that the gold producers' individual mines were separate workplaces. The labour court had held that the test is not whether a union has a majority or particular level of representivity at a specific mine within each gold producer, but focuses instead on "whether the operations carried on by the employer in different places are 'independent' of one another".

The chamber contended all the mines of each gold producer constituted a '"single workplace" for centralised collective bargaining purposes. This was the result of rich historic, powerful bargaining patterns that served the purpose of ensuring parity in conditions of employment and hence labour stability could be achieved.

The s23 extension impacted AMCU’s members as it curtailed their constitutional right to collectively bargain and strike at those specific mines where it had majority representation.

Argument not sustainable

According to Leppan, the labour appeal court concurred that the chamber is not a bargaining council and that AMCU's quest for ministerial approval ahead of any extension of a collective agreement taking effect had no application.

“AMCU’s argument that it could not be bound by a wage agreement that it did not sign was found to be not sustainable, as it was, according to the labour appeal court, contrary to the clear wording of s23 which does not require a signature to make such agreement binding by extension,” she says.

Argument undermines collective bargaining

The labour appeal court went further and held that AMCU's argument undermined collective bargaining and the policy of “majoritarianism” which had been carefully selected by the lawmakers when the LRA was first constructed.

The fact that s23 limits a minority union's right to strike over wages, once the wage agreement is concluded with the majority union and is extended, was found to be a limitation that is reasonable and justifiable and not in conflict with the Constitution.

Majoritarianism causing consequences

The challenge is that the LRA does not address minority unions' complaint that private actors, outside a bargain council structure, are determining their fate in collective bargaining outcomes without their consent.

According to Leppan the framework agreement concluded by representatives of government, organised labour and business in the mining sector during October 2013 recognised that while majoritarianism has served South Africa's system of industrial relations effectively in the past, it appeared to be causing some unintended consequences in infringing upon the rights of minority unions.

Aim to maintain industrial peace

It is important to place the decision in context, as in 1995 the drafters of the LRA made a policy choice to discard the previous duty to bargain in favour of a system of voluntary collective bargaining, preferably at sectoral level, underpinned by the principle of majoritarianism with the aim to maintain industrial peace and the democratisation of the workplace.

Leppan explains that this has not always been achieved, as the disruptions experienced in the mining and agricultural sectors in 2012 bear testimony.

It was apparent to the labour appeal court that AMCU had accepted the legitimacy of such extensions but only took issue with s23 because it did not carry the ministerial oversight that applies when a collective agreement concluded in a bargaining council is extended to non-parties.