Labour Law Reforms: Designed to Weaken Unions, Fragment Worker Power

Mbuso Ngubane

THE proposed amendments to the Labour Relations Act (LRA) and Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA), currently being finalised at NEDLAC, are not neutral adjustments to outdated legislation. They are a direct and deliberate attack on the historical gains of the working class in South Africa.

Dressed up as necessary reforms to create jobs and “modernise” our labour regime, these changes represent a shift away from the democratic ethos that informed post-apartheid labour law.

They are designed to weaken unions, fragment worker power, and tilt the balance decisively in favour of capital. As labour movements, we must sound the alarm — not only for our members in our respective trade unions but for the labour movement at large and for every working-class household in this country.

One of the most dangerous proposals is the introduction of a six-month period during which workers will not be allowed to claim protection from unfair dismissal. In practice, this means that employers will have six months to use, discard, exploit or fire workers without any recourse.

According to StatsSA, informal employment, “accounted for 19,5% of total employment in the fourth quarter”, and youth unemployment sits at 58%. This proposal will not create more jobs. It will legalise super-exploitation.

Employers will cycle through workers without consequence, never allowing them to stay long enough to qualify for legal protection. For domestic workers, cashiers, factory floor assistants, and call centre agents, the vast majority of whom are Black, women and young, this is a calculated exclusion from justice.

The proposed requirement for secret ballots in closed-shop agreements, along with automatic expiry if ballots aren’t held, is nothing short of an attack on trade union democracy. It is a back-door attempt to dismantle the most effective tools workers have to build solidarity.

NUMSA’s history demonstrates how closed-shop agreements have enabled the union to build power across workplaces and sectors, especially in a context of high worker turnover and subcontracting.

Employers have long opposed these agreements precisely because they prevent divide-and-rule tactics. These amendments hand bosses the very weapons they need to destabilise union strongholds and return them to the fragmented, unorganised workplaces of the 1980s.

Worse still is the move to exempt new small businesses, those with fewer than fifty workers and under two years old from the terms of extended bargaining council agreements. This is not about supporting SMEs. It is about legalising a two-tier labour system where new businesses can pay workers less, provide fewer benefits, and operate outside the collective bargaining standards fought for decades.

The real consequence will be employers restructuring their businesses to remain small on paper and escape obligations. Sectoral bargaining will be hollowed out. Wages will be driven down. And in time, the floor beneath the working class will collapse.

At the heart of these changes is this logic: labour must be made more flexible. But flexibility, in the South African context, is code for disposability. It means reducing labour costs not by improving productivity or innovation, but by rolling back rights.

It means disrupting the labour market so that employers are less accountable and workers, less protected. It means stripping away the very mechanisms, such as collective agreements, dispute resolution mechanisms, and reinstatement remedies that ensure a measure of justice for the poor.

The political context must also be understood. These amendments come at a time when the government has shifted toward a so-called “Government of National Unity”, involving the Democratic Alliance (DA) and other business-aligned forces.

It is not surprising that these very changes, probationary periods, closed shop restrictions, and collective bargaining exemptions, have long been part of the DA's policy platform. What we are witnessing is the creeping realignment of labour law away from its transformative purpose and toward the interests of capital. 

What happens when union rights are systematically dismantled can be seen clearly in the United Kingdom. Since the Thatcher years, when the power of organised labour was deliberately broken, the UK has experienced a steady decline in union density.

According to the Office for National Statistics, union membership among employees dropped from over 50% in 1979 to just 22.3% in 2022. Collective bargaining coverage fell with it. The result has been a long-term stagnation in wages. In real terms, average earnings in the UK were lower in 2023 than they were in 2008. The consequences are visible.

The Trades Union Congress reported earlier this year that one in six UK workers is skipping meals due to the cost-of-living crisis. The erosion of union power has led not to prosperity, but to precarity.

The warning from the U.K. is clear. When workers’ voices are weakened, inequality grows. When union rights are rolled back, wages stagnate. When collective protections are stripped away, society becomes more fragile, more divided, and more unequal. These are not abstract risks, they are the reality of a working-class left defenceless in the face of employer power.

For the labour movement at large, these changes threaten to set a precedent.

If closed-shop agreements can be dismantled today, what happens to the rights of farm workers, care workers, and security guards tomorrow? If we allow a two-tier system to emerge, based on company size or worker income, we will undo the central gains of centralised bargaining and social solidarity.

Trade union federations COSATU, SAFTU and FEDUSA must stand together. The unity of the labour movement, already strained by years of internal crisis, must be rekindled to face this coordinated attack.

The working class must reject these amendments in their entirety. They are regressions. If passed, they will mark the beginning of a new era, one in which the promises of 1994 are rewritten to suit the language of the market.

That future is not inevitable, but it will take resistance, organisation, and unity to stop it. We must not retreat.

* Mbuso Ngubane is Deputy General Secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA). He writes in his personal capacity.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.