It seems to be a commonly held view that the collective bargaining of unions is beneficial to the labour force by countering opressive employment tactics. If we ponder for a moment about how capitalist motivations combine with a more socialist (or even communist)way of thinking we might soon see the wolf beneath the forcibly eviscerated remains of a sheep it is using to conceal itself.

Clearly my view on the subject is rather biased, but walk with me down this path for a short while and humour me. Why do organisations exist? What is it that allows their continued existence in any kind of capitalist society? Money. Sooner or later everything needs money. In South Africa where a staggering amount of the population are poor or living (somehow) below the bread line, abuse of cheap labour is a big issue. The need for labour unions seems clear, but let’s think about the mechanics of a labour union.

Where does the money come from?

In the case of some of the larger ones political autonomy is sought by sourcing funds though membership fees, which is supplemented by donations from other unions or NGO’s or government - a prime example of this in South Africa is COSATU.

What causes people to want to be paid up members?

The resons are various but the primary motivation is almost certainly the protection that effective collective bargaining can offer over and above forming local or company specific groups to deal directly with management. This must be seen to be effective and to be looking after the needs of the members - essentially it’s the combination of marketing efforts of some form and at follow-through at the negotiating table.

If marketing has taught me anything it is that a product or service only needs the image of a characteristic and the minimum of functionality needed to uphold that image even if it’s not good functrionality the human brain wants to fill and the gap and does so readily. So what a union actually needs to do is have regular mass action and publicity thereof and the perception that the ‘evil’ employers or industry capitulate to their demands fairly regularly. Seems like it’s in the public interest right?

Wrong! Time is an important factor. Consider a bunch of employees striking over a wage increase issue. Employers are offering 5% and the unions are demanding 8.5% increase - seems like a small gap. Assume the strike goes on for a month during which the employer does not need to pay the employees, and then the employer folds to the demands of the union. Looks to the workers like a success. Unfortunately if one calculates the time it takes for that lost salary to break even with what they would have had if they accepted the offer and entered into closed door negotiations to haggle for the 3% it comes out to around 3 years! Even if they had accepted no increase at all it would have taken over a year to break even with their 8% increase after the month of striking. In the rare case that the union pays 50% of the striking workers’ salary it still will be 19 months before they break even..

Yet this sort of thing is noted down as a ’success’ and continues to build popularity within the masses of the country. With clear motivation to encourage more mass action and strikes I believe it likely that most workers are ahead of the scale in terms of money only 1/4 of the time.

So let’s recap: All the union has to do it consistently put their memebers into relative financial defict in order to ‘achieve’ their goals and increase membership which will likley increase the salaries and political power of the leaders who do not suffer at all when a strike is on. This is a huge example of how the labour union uses a capitalist situation to potentially exploit large numbers using a socialist/communist ideal of equal benefit for all at the expense of individual decision making and reasoning and all to the benefit of a few leaders. Can someone remind me what the definitions of ‘evil’ and ‘corruption’ are?

In the South African context we don’t even seem to need a legitimate reason to strike or even a direct causal link between the strike and the desired effect. We have had strikes against rising food and electricity prices which serve only to cost the country millions in lost work for people on the day of the strike, but these are macro-economic and infrastructural problems which cannot be solved overnight let alone over 5 years! We have metropolitan police who purposefully organise and implement a blockade on a highway with the intention of firing on other police coming to break the illegal blockade with live ammunition using civilians as human shields. (I can confirm these statements either through my own observations of the planning the day before or from people known to me personally who were stuck in the blockade)

So, do we all still believe that unions are the upstanding and societally beneficial institutions they are supposed to be?

As an FYI, here’s a link to relevant legal stuff regarding strikes:

http://www.labour.gov.za/basic_guides/bguide_display.jsp?id=5904