South African Labour Research Articles

Labour Studies and Labour History in South Africa: Perspectives from the Apartheid Era and After

AbstractThis article attempts to introduce readers to the impressive and influential historical and contemporary literature on South African labour. A literature with some earlier antecedents effectively applied classic sociological and historical themes to the specific conditions of South African political and economic development. Research on the phase of politicized and militant white worker action ties up with research into the international pre-World War I labour movement. The strength of this literature reflected the insurgent labour movement linked to political struggle against apartheid before 1990. After this review, the second half of the paper tries to consider and contextualize the challenging post-apartheid labour situation together with its political aspects. With the successful conclusion of the anti-apartheid struggle, students of the labour movement, as well as of South African society, have become more aware of the distance between establishing a liberal democracy and actually changing society itself in a direction leading towards less inequality and an improved life for those at the bottom of society, or even the broad mass of the population. As recent literature reveals, the development of post-apartheid South Africa has been a differential and problematic experience for labour.

An analysis of skills development in a transitional economy: the case of the South African labour market

This article evaluates the extent to which both the supply and retention of scarce skills are adequate for South Africa to compete with similar emerging, transitional economies in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries, a grouping it has recently joined. The aim of this article is to analyse the basis for skills shortages, policy measures taken and capacity to implement plans. Using a labour market approach to skills formation and integrating this with institutional analysis, this article critically evaluates the nature of the skills shortage, barriers to skills retention, HR strategies for talent management and public policy questions. This analysis concludes that South Africa is adversely affected by a shortage of intermediate and certain high-level skills. This analysis identifies four propositions for further investigation by policy-makers and researchers. The implications of this analysis underline the importance of appropriate labour market supply-side policy measures and firm-level HR strategic choices for skills retention and utilization.

New South Africa, old language'! The role of metaphor in reporting the negotiation of the South African labour Relations Bill, June· July 1995

New South Africa, old language'! The role of metaphor in reporting the negotiation of the South African labour Relations Bill, June· July 1995

THE WEIGHT OF SUCCESS: THE BODY MASS INDEX AND ECONOMIC WELL-BEING IN SOUTHERN AFRICA.

We show that body mass increases with economic resources among most Southern Africans, although not all. Among Black South Africans the relationship is non-decreasing over virtually the entire range of incomes/wealth. Furthermore in this group other measures of "success" (e.g., employment and education) are also associated with increases in body mass. This is true in both 1998 (the Demographic and Health Survey) and 2008 (National Income Dynamics Survey). A similar relationship holds among residents of Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique, Malawi, and Namibia. This suggests that body mass can be used as a crude measure of well-being. This allows us to examine the vexed question in South African labor economics whether there is involuntary unemployment. The fact that the unemployed are lighter than the employed, even when we control for household fixed effects, suggests that they are not choosing this state.

The Role of Human Dignity in the Assessment of Fair Compensation for Unfair Dismissals

South African labour law is concerned with the attainment of fairness for both the employer and the employee. In weighing up the interests of the respective parties it is of paramount importance to ensure that a delicate balance is achieved so as to give credence to commercial reality as well as an individual's right to dignity. In other words the attainment of fairness in the employment relationship must give cognisance not only to surrounding socio-economic reality but also to human rights. The environment within which the world of work operates has at its core a free enterprise economy. Ultimately, an employer should generally not be penalised to the extent that it is crippled and unable to continue operating. It is argued in this article that in ascertaining what constitutes appropriate compensation for an unfair dismissal, the underlying reality that labour law operates in a free enterprise system must be and is given cognisance to by the legislation and the courts. At the same time in ascertaining what constitutes fair compensation for unfair dismissal due regard must be had not only to the labour rights contained in the Constitution but also to other rights protected in terms of the Constitution, most importantly, the rightsto dignity and equality. The fact that the basis of the employment relationship is commercial and an employer is entitled and even encouraged to make profits is reflected in our law by the fact that there are caps on the amount of compensation for unfair dismissal in the interests of business efficiency and certainty. However, an analysis of relevant case law demonstrates that this can never be at the expense of a person's dignity. Hence the notion that the employment relationship is relational. This is reflected by the interpretation given to the legislation by the courts. Where there has been discrimination or an impairment of the employee's dignity, there are no such limits as to the amount of compensation a court can award. If there has been unfair discrimination, the courts may even award punitive and non-pecuniary damages.KEYWORDS: Constructive dismissal; Right to dignity; Harassment; Unfair dismissal; Compensation for unfair dismissal; Solatium; Relational contract

The relationship between sex ratios and marriage rates in South Africa

We investigate the relationship between alternative definitions of sex ratios and marriage outcomes among African and white women in South Africa. In contrast to marriages among whites, African marriages in South Africa traditionally have involved the payment of bridewealth (or ilobolo) by a husband to the prospective wife's family. Using matched data from the 2001 Population Census and the South African Labour Force Surveys, we find that among Africans, both the quantity and quality of unmarried men relative to women in local marriage markets are significant predictors of marriage. However, economic-based measures of marriageability have a larger effect on marriage outcomes than simple sex ratios. These findings are consistent with the argument that bridewealth payments act as a financial constraint to marriage among African couples, raising the marriageability criteria of men. In contrast, we find mostly insignificant results for the relationship between sex ratios and marriage outcomes among white women.

The relative labour productivity contribution of different age-skill categories for a developing economy

Orientation: The article dealt with the estimation, computation and interpretation of the relative productivity contributions of different age-skill categories. Research purpose: The aim of the article was to estimate and compute, (1) relative productivity contributions and (2) relative productivity contribution–employee remuneration cost levels for different age-skill categories.Motivation for the study: The research was deemed necessary given the current debate on relative productivity levels and possible changes to the retirement age in the South African labour market. No real research in this regard has been published regarding the South African labour market situation.Research design, approach and method: A less restrictive production function was used, allowing for the simultaneous estimation and final computation of relative labour contribution levels of different age-skill categories.Main findings: The lower-skilled segment produced significantly smaller productivity contributions and the relative productivity contribution–employee remuneration cost ratios of the 55 years and older age group were superior in the higher-skilled segment but, at the same time, the lowest in the lower-skilled segment.Practical/managerial implications: It is recommended that human resource practitioners (given the perceived rigidity of labour legislation) implement and maintain structures that promote higher productivity levels for all age-skill categories in the workplace.Contribution/value-add: An estimation procedure, which can be applied to the measurement of the relative productivity contribution of different age-skill categories, has been established.

The Gender Wage Gap in the Post-Apartheid South African Labour Market

We estimate the gender wage gap for Africans in post-apartheid South Africa over the 2001 to 2007 period. Separate male and female earnings equations yields no significant decline in the conditional wage gap, regardless of whether we correct for selection into the labour force and employment or not. Notwithstanding this, the data appear to reveal a decline in the “explained” proportion of the gap with no significant change in the “unexplained” proportion of the gap. Nevertheless, the “unexplained” proportion or discrimination accounted for 71 percent of the gap in 2007 when using the uncorrected estimates (and the male wage structure as the non-discriminatory norm) thus highlighting the presence, arguably, of substantial discrimination against African women in the post-apartheid South African labour market. We note though that the assumption that the “unexplained” component accounts for discrimination has been criticized for a number of reasons, including the fact that women may self-select into certain types of jobs, the impact of gender-based pre-labour market factors as well as omitted variable bias. Finally, we find that using the either the male or pooled wage structure as the non-discriminatory wage structure provides similar results when undertaking the decomposition. In turn, using the female wage structure results in the harshest results as far as gender discrimination is concerned.

The Newly Unemployed and the UIF Take-Up Rate in the South African Labour Market

This paper investigates the take-up rate or claim-waiting rate of the unemployed under the South African Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) system. The goal is to identify disincentive effects that income replacement rates (IRR) and accumulated credits may have on the claimant's behaviour in terms of their claim waiting period rate (or how quickly they apply for UIF benefits). Utilizing nonparametric and semi-parametric estimation techniques, we find that there is little evidence, if any, for job disincentives or moral hazard problems. More specifically, the majority of claimants that are quickest to claim the UIF benefits are those who have worked continuously for at least four years and accumulated the maximum allowable amount of credits. We also note that claimants' claim-waiting periods are indifferent with regard to levels of income replacements yet extremely sensitive to the amount of credits accumulated. Ultimately, the recipients of the UIF benefits do not depend heavily on the replacement incomes and prefer waiting longer for employment opportunities to arise as opposed to exhausting their accumulated credits. The semi-parametric Cox's Proportional Hazard (PH) model confirms that there is a positive relationship between the claimant's accumulation of credits and the associated take-up rate of the UIF.

Analysing Wage Formation in the South African Labour Markets: The Role of Bargaining Councils

The role of bargaining councils, the central pillar of collective bargaining in South Africa, in the formation of wages is important in the context of high unemployment rates in South Africa. In this study we find that while institutionalized collective bargaining system covered substantially more formal sector workers in 2005 (30 percent) compared to 1995 (15 percent), this still meant that less than a third of the formally employed were covered by bargaining councils. Notwithstanding this, the overall rise in the number of workers covered by bargaining council agreements between 1995 and 2005 was driven almost primarily by the introduction of public sector councils. Thus, bargaining council coverage in the first decade of democracy is characterized by an erosion of coverage within the private sector bargaining council system on the one hand and the rapid rise of this system of bargaining in the public sector. On the other hand the descriptive data and multivariate models show therefore a significant wage premium associated with coverage under public sector councils in 2005, in excess of the large and significant union wage premium. The decline in the bargaining council system in the private sector is accompanied by declining wage premia for formal sector workers covered under private sector bargaining council agreements, with our preferred specification in 2005 indicating no significant private sector bargaining council wage premium.

Labour Reform in South Africa: Measuring Regulation and a Synthesis of Policy Suggestions

Even though the South African economy is formally categorised as an upper-middle income country, it has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. The economy’s unemployment rate stands officially at 26.7 per cent and 38.8 per cent. This characteristic, more than any other, has placed market regulation high on the agenda of pertinent policy issues in South Africa. This paper, then, in trying to mature the debate on labour regulation and worker protection, has two key objectives. Firstly, we attempt to provide more nuanced and empirically-based measures of labour regulation and worker protection for South Africa, within an international comparative context. Secondly, we attempt a legal overview of some of the key legislative and institutional challenges that exist within the South African labour market. We also attempt an overview of the evidence relating to the degree of actual and perceived rigidity within the South African labour market. The evidence utilised will hopefully add value to the debates thus far on the extent and nature of labour regulation in South Africa.

The Cost of Rigidity: The Case of the South African Labor Market

The South African labor market has been characterized by high and persistent levels of unemployment, and a poor capacity to create jobs. This paper examines existing evidence on what rigidities have generated this outcome. Pricing power in output markets, as well as labor supply and demand side rigidities are all found to have contributed, resulting in excessive increases in real wage costs which under conditions of relatively low economic growth, has produced a stagnant labor market. Policy requirements are the pursuit of stonger economic growth and reductions in real labor costs.

The feasibility of localised strike action by educators in cases of learner misconduct

Developments in South African labour legislation since the inception of the new democracy indicate serious attempts by the legislators to protect the interests of employees. The Bill of Rights has, concurrently, enshrined a variety of fundamental rights that, in principle, offer protection in the workplace. Despite this established, protective legal framework, South African schools regularly witness incidents where fundamental rights of educators are infringed. Numerous educators are currently convinced that their rights are put second to the rights of learners, even in cases of physical or psychological violence against them. Where ineffective enforcement of legislation by the state occurs, educators’ security is undermined. This article explores various ways of compelling the employer to enforce existing legislation effectively against learner delinquency that may impact on the security of a specific group of educators. The basic claim of the article is that industrial action by educators in the form of localised strikes is feasible, provided that all other remedies have been exhausted. It is concluded that justice should be visibly reinstated by the state as employer, in all cases where educators’ right to security are violated.

Disability Discrimination and the Right of Disabled Persons to Access the Labour Market

Inequality, discrimination and transformation remain the key challenges which most employers are faced with in the South African labor market. Key among such challenges has also been employers' ability to ensure that persons with disabilities access the labor market. In this paper I highlight employment discrimination experienced by persons with disabilities in South African workplaces, which often prohibits them from accessing employment opportunities. I argue that employers need to consider employing persons with disabilities and also reasonably to accommodate them within South African workplaces. I further illustrate efforts by the legislature to eradicate forms of unjustified discrimination against persons with disabilities through the enactment of the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998. I argue that all of us need to understand how cultural, social, physical and other barriers continue to prevent persons with disabilities in South Africa from enjoying their constitutional rights to equality, freedom and human dignity, and further, that it is desirable that society at large and government work together towards eradicating barriers which prevent persons with disabilities from accessing the labor market.

Land, Livelihoods, and the Decline of Work: South African Lessons for Current Debates

This article presents a comparison of central debates in South African labor sociology in the1970s and the contemporary era. I argue that scholars can break through impasses in currentlabor sociology debates by reviving attention to the land-labor-livelihood (LLL) connections thatinspired theoretical advancements in the South African literature of the 1970s. After anintroduction and definition of LLL connections, the paper analyzes an exemplary work of thelabor literature of the 1970s, giving special attention to the way in which the LLL focus shapedthe questions asked by the authors. The article proceeds to a review of central debates from thecurrent labor literature, which focuses primarily on issues of the labor movement. It is arguedthat this focus on movements has limited the scope of labor scholarship, resulting in an impassein South African labor debates. An emerging literature that renews attention to the LLLconnections is proposed as a model for moving beyond this impasse. I close the article bydiscussing the implications for this review of South African literature for global laborscholarship.

The South African Labour Movement's Responses to Declarations of Martial Law, 1913-1922

The first two decades of South Africa's history is characterised as a period of serious endemic industrial unrest and violence, when the labour movement and capital were involved in regular conflict over labour issues and for control of the country's industrial work force. The level of violence in these conflicts was such that the government as a third party was repeatedly forced to intervene in the disputes and restore law and order by imposing martial law. This paper explores labour's attitude and responses to, as well as the consequences for labour, of the government's declarations of martial law during these disputes and in the First World War.

Giving up Job Search during a Recession: The Impact of the Global Financial Crisis on the South African Labour Market

The global financial crisis deeply impacted the South African labour market, resulting in the shedding of almost 1 million jobs over 2009 and 2010. Reflecting longer term structural problems, this employment loss translated into a much larger rise in the number of discouraged individuals rather than those defined as ‘narrowly’ unemployed. Drawing on estimates using the micro-data, this paper shows that this state of non-searching unemployment or discouragement has increased more during the recent crisis for uneducated African males. Moreover, individuals who have given up job search during the recession are statistically different than those who continue searching. At the same time, searching is a transitory state for some of the jobless with considerable movements between the two categories of unemployment. These findings from the first post-Apartheid recession underscore the importance in the South African context of analysing a broad measure of unemployment, which includes discouraged workers.

Impact of demographic variables on voluntary labour turnover in South Africa

This paper demonstrates the relevance of employee demographic variables as extended factors in the voluntary turnover process since these models currently do not sufficiently explain the factors impacting the turnover decision. Over 1000 managers and knowledge workers were surveyed using a cross-sectional questionnaire to identify potential similarities in demographic variables in the decision to leave the organisation. Findings indicate that various demographic variables (age, race and gender) influence whether pull or push factors are cited in the turnover process. In addition, it is found that the level of education has a stronger relationship to employee mobility than race, which contradicts the current sentiment in the South African labour market. Furthermore, it is concluded that demographic variables of employees should be considered in the extension of contemporary turnover models. The findings have implications for human resource management practices in organisations that are more dependent on knowledge workers. Consequently, the findings have implications for current prevailing theory on voluntary turnover research.

Labour Reform in South Africa: Measuring Regulation and a Synthesis of Policy Suggestions

Even though the South African economy is formally categorised as an upper-middle income country, it has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. The economy’s unemployment rate stands officially at 26.7 per cent and 38.8 per cent. This characteristic, more than any other, has placed market regulation high on the agenda of pertinent policy issues in South Africa. This paper, then, in trying to mature the debate on labour regulation and worker protection, has two key objectives. Firstly, we attempt to provide more nuanced and empirically-based measures of labour regulation and worker protection for South Africa, within an international comparative context. Secondly, we attempt a legal overview of some of the key legislative and institutional challenges that exist within the South African labour market. We also attempt an overview of the evidence relating to the degree of actual and perceived rigidity within the South African labour market. The evidence utilised will hopefully add value to the debates thus far on the extent and nature of labour regulation in South Africa.

Rethinking the Underclass: Future Directions in Southern African Labor History

Southern and South African labor history has, at least since the 1970s, been as much about the future of the region as about its past. Liberal scholars saw in apartheid and segregation irrational aberrations to the color-blind logic of capitalism. They believed the apartheid state to be an instrument of racial dominance but saw it as more or less neutral in terms of class relations. Economic growth and the abolishment of racial laws would bring freedom and equality—or at least equal opportunities. On the other hand, radical historians and sociologists thought of apartheid as a system that guaranteed the exploitation of cheap black labor for the benefit of capital. For them, apartheid was functional to capitalism.2 While both the liberal and the radical positions were often more nuanced than the other side would admit, the question that divided these two camps was one about politics and strategy: Would capitalist development bring an end to racial domination, or was it part of the problem? In the latter case, challenging apartheid and colonialism would also involve challenging capitalism. The vibrancy of these debates should continue to serve as an inspiration for labor historians. I will argue that for the Left to be able to formulate viable alternatives to present policies, we should look at the history and nature of labor and inequality in the region.