NUM must come out in support of DA strike violence bill

28 January 2015

The DA calls on the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) to put words to action by coming out in support of the Labour Relations Amendment Bill 2014, which seeks to curtail strike related violence that continues to negatively affect all South Africans.

This follows comments made by NUM spokesperson, Livhuwani Mammburu, in which he stated that the union does not encourage, support or condone strike related violence or damage to property. "We are totally against that" said Mammburu, when asked about the violent circumstances surrounding the recent strike at Northam Platinum's Zondereinde mine.

Violence has increasingly become part of strike culture in South Africa, with intimidation, assault and even death occurring frequently in most labour disputes. A clear example of this being last year's month-long metals and engineering industry strike, which saw 256 cases of intimidation, 50 violent incidents and 85 cases of vandalism reported within the first two weeks.

If NUM truly is "totally against" strike related violence, they must take definitive action and publicly support the bill, which is set to be formally introduced in Parliament for debate in February this year.

The bill, which was submitted by the DA at the end of last year, seeks to eradicate strike violence in the following ways:

It requires unions to:

Educate workers regarding violence and the prescripts of the law before their members go out on strike; and

Provide increased marshals for crowd control purposes and to prevent criminals infiltrating union ranks.

It empowers courts to stop a strike that has become excessively violent by forcing the parties into urgent arbitration;

It empowers courts to declare a strike that has become excessively violent as a de facto unprotected strike; and

It empowers courts to award damages judgements against unions that have not implemented measures for the limitation of violence as required by the Bill.

The DA is steadfast in our belief that nothing must compromise the protection and lawful exercise of workers' Constitutional rights. This must, however, also be balanced with acting in the best interests of all people, and ensure that the right to strike is coupled with a duty to ensure the safety of all South Africans. This bill seeks to achieve that balance.

Anything less than unequivocal support for this bill would speak volumes into NUM's credibility, and their comments condoning strike violence would amount to nothing more than empty rhetoric.

Statement issue by Ian Ollis MP, DA Shadow Minister of Labour, January 28 2015

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