Workers' Perceptions Towards the Establishment of Workplace Forums in South African Industries

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions of workers towards the establishment of workplace forums in South Africa industries. Workplace forums are committees of employees elected by employees for employees in a workplace. These bodies promote the interests of all employees in the workplace, not only of trade union members. In this study, 30 respondents (management and employees of all races and gender) were selected to participate from 230 employees using a simple random technique. The cluster system was used to divide the industry into departments from which the final respondents were selected. The observation method and most of the official records and statistics were also used to collect and solicit the necessary information for this research. The central view held by this study was that workplace forums are very useful in achieving efficiency in the workplace and that they help in improving trade union activities. The critical view of the study was that there are few workplace forums established in South African industries. This showed that, the industries should provide some possible measures for the establishment of the workplace forums to reduce industrial unrest. But the problem is that trade unions did not encourage this because they see workplace forum as a threat to them. Nonetheless, special attention was on workplace forums because it was taken as a second channel of representation which intended to be one of the primary instruments of the Labour Relations Act (LRA) to democratise the workplace. The study recommended that; workplace forums should be established in all industries. Trade unions should be involved in the workplace forums. There should be the prevention of the establishment of other forums within one organisation. Management and workers should work together to prevent impending conflict.