This article was first published by Business Brief on 17 July 2024
Gargantuan and tyrannical unions like the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU), and National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) have leveraged their power, numbers, money, and capacity to threaten violence, and in so doing hold the economy hostage.
They only care about their selfish, personal agenda, lobbying for policies that actively inhibit new workers from entering the job market, thereby contributing to mass unemployment, as well as halting the growth of businesses as they face intimidation and exorbitant demands. And if businesses fail to fulfil the often-unrealistic demands of these mega-unions, they are then faced with mass violence and insurrection.
Unions should not wield as much power and control as they do. COSATU is in a formal alliance with the ruling African National Congress (ANC), and is a key player in legislation and governance. This allows COSATU to enforce regulations that benefit unionised workers, to the detriment of employers and the unemployed who are desperately trying to get their foot in the door of the job market.
We should rightfully balk at big business interfering in the affairs of a democracy; so why do we tolerate COSATU using its ideological alliance with the ANC to selfishly pursue its own agenda?
NUMSA has demonstrated a predilection for violence, often infusing their mass strike and protest action with intimidation, vandalism, and downright assault. NUMSA members often attack workers who want to keep working despite collectively enforced strike-action. A violation of the right to work. No union should be allowed to get away with forcing non-union members to not work.
SADTU has used its position as SA’s largest teachers’ union to enable mass amounts of corruption. Corruption Watch has identified SADTU as selling jobs to ill-deserving teachers. The defence of incompetent teachers and proliferation of corruption with SADTU’s blessing has devastated our education system.
No union should hold as much power as these big three do. They shouldn’t have a privileged ear in government. The role of a union is to be a place where employees of a business can collectively make demands of their employer. Yet, these unions dominate politics, use violence, and force their demands on not just employers, but the entire economy and country.
The fundamental cause of this debacle is a culture of union domination in SA politics. Striking, protests and trade unions are seen as almost holy entities – no matter the damage they cause. The fact that the ANC is so obsessed with Marxism, even today, feeds into the ability for unions to control far too many aspects of daily life.
Unions need to have their privileges taken away in SA. And a very good way to achieve this would be to treat them like companies. They make a fortune from membership fees anyway, and are functionally businesses. But unlike businesses, they are far more protected by the government.
This needs to change. Unions need to face more competition. When a private company approaches the power and monopoly position that unions have, they face legal trouble. Unions should be treated the same. Overly large unions are bloated, prone to corruption and far too powerful for their own good. They should be divided and cut up.
A good rule would be to ban industry-wide unions. A union shouldn’t represent an entire industry. When fast food workers, for instance, are all a part of the same union, making the same industry-level demands, it prevents competition between employers. When wages are fixed by mass strike action and union demands, it prevents McDonalds from trying to poach decent workers from KFC with higher wages, or Wimpy from innovating better conditions of employment that put them ahead of the competition. Rather, unions work to the detriment of skilled workers – dragging everyone down to the same level regardless of desert.
Unions should exist only for a single employer, or an area at most. The behaviour of another company should not be the business of the union of another.
Many smaller unions forming to fulfil the very different needs of their smaller memberships allows each union to be more effective, catered to their constituents, and unable to truly disrupt the entire economy; something large unions want, but they should not have the right to do.
For a country dominated by unions at a cultural level, this may be a harsh proposal. But for the future of South Africa, unions must be cut down to size. This will solve our unemployment, lead to the growth of the economy, and be for the betterment of all South Africans.
