Transport strikes: Unions must be held liable for violence and damages

Unions involved in the ongoing transport and freight industry strike must be held liable for the damages and violence perpetrated by its members. 

The level of violence and damage to property relating to these strikes continues to escalate. Some of the disturbing incidents reported on include: 

• In Nyanga, Cape Town, two trucks were set alight.
• A working truck driver was beaten up in Durban.
• Truck drivers in Johannesburg and Durban threw stones at passing trucks, burned a number of trucks and assaulted non-striking truck-drivers.

Three people have been hospitalised thus far and several have sustained injuries:

• A working driver in eThekwini sustained serious head wounds while trying to drive away from protesters, and subsequently collided with a car and then smashed into a tree.
• Two Ekhurhuleni workers were allegedly assaulted badly with knobkierries and sjamboks when they tried to flee the scene.
• Three more Ekhurhuleni drivers were attacked and forced to abandon their vehicles by striking truck drivers who also torched their truck and vans.

This violent and undemocratic expression of grievances cannot be tolerated. 

The DA's Private Member's Bill - recently referred to the Labour Committee for consideration - seeks to amend the Labour Relations Act of 1995 and proposes that unions be held accountable for their members' misconduct during strikes. 

This will go a long way to protect non-striking workers and the general public from violence and intimidation and will protect public and private property from malicious destruction during strike action. 

A judgment in the Constitutional Court in June this year also found that under the Gatherings Act, when riot damage occurs as a direct result of a gathering, the organisation under whose auspices it was held and every person participating in such a demonstration shall be jointly and severally liable for such damage. 

The DA therefore calls on all individuals and businesses who have been victims of the current transport strike to come forward and exercise their legal rights in terms of the Constitutional Court judgment. 

Unions must be held liable for penalties and damages relating to the illegal and undisciplined behaviour of their members. 

The DA will continue to ensure that the democratic right to strike is exercised responsibly. All unions must be held accountable for the behaviour of their members.

Statement issued by Ian Ollis MP, DA Shadow Minister of Transport, September 28 2012

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