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The
anatomy of a strike
Issued
by: Crisis Communications Consultancy -
10 Oct 2006
14:16
Reproduced with
permission of the author:
Author:
Evan Bloom
Managing Director
Crisis
Communications Consultancy
http://www.crisiscomms.com
02 May 2007
The anatomy of a strike
Issued
by: Crisis Communications Consultancy
How does a strike work and what contingencies must management
have in place? The number of strikes occurring in South Africa
is set to increase. From a public relations perspective, many
companies will not be ready to deal with the issues and
challenges presented by industrial action.
"Indications are that we are going to see more strike action
in South Africa than even before," says Evan Bloom, MD of the
Crisis Communications Consultancy. "Figures released by the
South African Reserve Bank show that the number of working days
lost as a result of strike action increased from about 700 000 in
the first half of 2005 to 1,6 million in the first half of 2006.
This was the highest figure in 10 years. In light of this, local
companies must ensure they have the right processes in place to
deal with and communicate throughout all eventualities."
The unstable South African political environment is a key
contributing factor to increased industrial action. In a Business
Report article (22 September 2006), economist Mike Schussler
said an increase in the number of strikes should be expected as
political tensions play themselves out.
The wage negation process
Prior to initiating wage talks, the union will analyse market
trends and issues such as inflation projections and CPIX. If the
union is about to enter wage negotiations with a listed entity, it
will also study the company's financial results - both interim and
year-end - as well as analysing general market conditions.
Once all these facts and figures have been considered, the union
goes to its branches across the country and to its membership to
ask for a mandate to initiate wage negotiations.
"Our purpose of negotiating with management is to put money
back into workers' pockets that inflation is taking out,"
says Andre Venter, divisional manager of financial and strategic
support services at UASA trade union. "But we cannot rule out
pushing for a bit of extra money if we see a valid need for it. We
will also look at other relevant issues such as working
conditions, employee benefits and annual leave and bring these to
the table if need be.
Venter says that labour relations are highly regulated so unions
cannot willy-nilly decide to strike or demand wage negotiations at
the drop of a hat. Irrespective of whether there are bargaining
councils or negotiations by way of collective agreement, the
parties must follow predetermined processes and procedures as laid
down in the Labour Relation Act.
During the process of listening to additional worker demands, a
responsible trade union leader involved in the pre-negotiation
stage must also have a feel for what is reasonable and achievable.
"We must be realistic in terms of what we ask from
management," says Venter. "If this is not done, workers
end up making unreasonable demands, the union is unable to manage
their expectations, and next there are violent marches and
riots."
Once the relevant information has been collected and proper
preparation has taken place, the union will contact the management
of the company in question, or the representatives of an industry,
and initiate a process of negotiation. "They too will have
prepared a list of their wants, and they will know up to how much
they can negotiate new wages or salaries," adds Venter.
"It is at this stage that the leaders of a company must
prepare and develop their own contingency measures," says
Bloom.
Management can also use as one of their bargaining tools the fact
that if unions want more money, they will be forced to cut the
workforce so they can afford the new wage. "But management
dare not lie," states Venter. "One of the major
contributing factors to the SAA strike was that management first
mentioned to us that they did not have money and could not afford
a pay increase; a couple of days later they announced their
financial results which proved the opposite and this caused a
complete breakdown of communication between the parties."
During the entire process of deliberating, management and
organised labour either move towards an agreement, a win-win
situation for all, or they are forced to declare a dispute.
"In the recent security strike, one of the unions presumably
had a totally different agenda and used the process of wage
negotiations to give expression to it, with devastating
consequences," continues Venter.
A strike should be the very last resort, from a union and
management perspective, it should only result from extensive
rational negotiations and meaningful investigation of all
opportunities and alternatives, with unions reporting back to
their constituents and receiving their mandate to proceed. The
whole process should be characterised by give-and-take from
management and the unions.
At the end of each negotiating session, trade union
representatives inform their constituents about the proceedings.
Some unions creatively make use of a bulk SMS system to
immediately inform members what has transpired and what is next on
the agenda, in so doing, keeping the momentum.
Communicating the outcome of the negotiations to inter alia the
media is viewed as serious business by the unions. "During
the entire process there is big competition between the parties to
see who can be first with the news," continues Venter.
However, things also get complicated when a number of unions
represent different factions or interests, as they compete to
break the news to the media and their constituents.
If a stalemate or deadlock is reached, the unions need to obtain a
final mandate from their members and if the dispute remains
unresolved, it can be referred to the Commission for Conciliation,
Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA). If the CCMA fails to resolve the
dispute by means of conciliation, only then can the relevant CCMA
commissioner issue a certificate of deadlock.
Even the issuing of a certificate of deadlock does not allow the
union to immediately go on strike. The process is as follows:
1. Either the management of the company or the union/employees
declare a dispute on a prescribed form which is referred to the
CCMA
2. The CCMA appoints a commissioner, who was not privy to any of
the previous discussions, to call the two parties together for a
final round of mediation and conciliation
3. If the commissioner is of the impression that any further
discussion will be fruitless then they will issue a certificate of
deadlock
4. The certificate of deadlock will then be issued
5. The union then has to issue a formal notice in the prescribed
format to the employer of it's intention to embark on strike
action, providing the employer with 48 hours' notice that a strike
will occur
The notice of strike action must cover a variety of issues to make
it legal, such as: the date, time and place of the strike, as well
as the components of the workforce that will initiate it. If these
do not appear then the strike is technically illegal. If picketing
is to occur then the parameters governing this must be agreed with
the commissioner before the strike commences.
If improper notice is given an employer can go to the labour court
to initiate an immediate and urgent action to obtain an interdict
against the trade unions to prevent them from striking.
So what processes and procedures should employers have in place to
help them manage the fallout from a strike? The Crisis
Communications Consultancy suggests the following
Before the strike:
1. Ensure that all necessary HR requirements are complied with
2. Open up a channel of communication between employees and
management to provide for an 'open door' policy, and also to
ensure all requests and queries are acted upon and that feedback
is provided
3. Management must ensure that their vulnerability audit and
scenario planning exercises include all aspects of industrial
action
4. All areas of the company that could be affected by industrial
action must be identified and the necessary contingencies put in
place, especially from a supply chain perspective
5. The crisis management plan must be readied and updated and the
crisis management team should have at least one industrial action
oriented drill
6. All audiences -- internal and external -- ranging from the
media to clients, stakeholders, suppliers, contractors, managers
and partners must be warned that the company may be facing a
strike and they should make whatever contingency plans are
necessary
During the strike:
7. Announce continuous updates on all developing issues and events
pertaining to the negotiation process and new arrangements made by
the company to get its products and services delivered or made
available
8. Maintain an open door policy for interacting with the media and
with clients and employees
9. CEOs should meet with key clients and suppliers and give them
immediate updates until the strike is over
After the strike:
10. Clients and suppliers and all stakeholders must receive
communication to inform them that the strike is over, and how it
was resolved
11. A detailed crisis post-mortem must be held to determine what
aspects of the crisis were managed correctly or incorrectly and
what changes need to be made for future crisis management
Please note the above points are a basic framework for dealing
with a strike related crisis. Implementation of these points will
vary from situation to situation, company to company and
organisation to organisation.
Editorial
contact
Crisis Communications Consultancy
Evan Bloom
+27 (0)11 622 7027
[10 Oct 2006 14:16]
Evan
Bloom
is the managing director of the Crisis Communications
Consultancy, a company that specialises in crisis management,
planning and training. The Crisis Communications Consultancy is
rapidly gaining a reputation as a leader in the field of crisis
and issues management, particularly in the areas of vulnerability
auditing, crisis planning and training. In addition to owning the
Crisis Communications Consultancy, Evan also owns Strategy One
Communications, a strategic PR consultancy that specialises in
business to business PR.
The
Author:
Evan
Bloom has worked at
some of South Africa’s leading PR consultancies and has worked in PR overseas in Kenya. He has worked on some of
South Africa
and
Africa’s biggest PR projects and also has extensive experience on
global PR projects and events. From a crisis perspective, Evan has
led counsel on the following crisis types: inaccurate media
reporting, shareholder activism, environmental issues, airline
incidences, product perception issues, labour relations and
strikes, mergers and acquisitions, legal and crisis management
integration with business continuity for global events. Evan
is regularly interviewed on TV and radio and is often quoted in
the print media. The Crisis Communications Consultancy is
the first local company to issue crisis management reports issued
on a quarterly basis. In addition, Evan also conducts crisis
management training at companies and for seminars and workshops.
Evan has a BA and a BA Honours degree in communications from
Unisa and a MA in Communications with a specialty in PR and crisis
management from RAU, now renamed University of
Johannesburg. He has received advanced crisis management training in the
United States of America
and in England. Contact him at info@crisiscomms.com.
Short
summary
Certain procedures need to be followed before a legal strike can
be declared; all parties to the negotiations need to be involved
and prepare for the process.
Keywords
and relevant phrases
agenda, agreement, arbitration, bargaining council, bargaining
tools, CCMA, certificate of deadlock, collective agreement, Commission for Conciliation,
Mediation and Arbitration, commissioner,
communication, conciliation, consultation, contingencies,
deadlock, declared dispute, demands, dispute, give-and-take,
industrial action, industrial relations, inform, IR, Labour
Relations Act, legal, LRA, mandate, media, mediation, negotiation,
notice of strike action, organised labour, picketing, political
environment, resolution, scenario planning exercise, stakeholders,
stalemate, strike, technically illegal, trade union, updates,
vulnerability audit, wage negotiation process, workforce.
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