Study On The System Of Collective Bargaining In South Africa

The system of collective bargaining in South Africa has been developed on the basis of the Labor Relations Act 66 of 1995(LRA 66/1995). Its establishment has absorbed experience from some important laws in the history of South Africa; including the Industrial Conciliation Act in 1924 and the Labor Relations Act 28 of 1956.The sources of law of the system of collective in South Africa include the Labor Relations Act 66 of 1995, the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa,1996, the Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1996 ,the Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997 and some conventions drafted by the United Nation and the International labor organization.The purpose of the collective bargaining in South Africa is to ensure the wage,term,benefit,training and work environment of employee, and to solve the disputes between the employee and employer in peace way. By collective bargaining, it can save the social cost and keep social in order. The parties in the collective bargaining are the representative trade union and employer or employers'organization. The representative trade union has some rights, for example, to strike; and it also has to shoulder some obligations, for example, to use the due reasonably. The employer has the right to lock-out and has the obligation to good-faith bargaining. Bargaining council and statutory council are two special institutions in South Africa. Their functions are to promote collective bargaining and to solve the labor disputes.Collective Bargaining in South Africa must follow the special procedure. It includes four steps. The first step is to propose for collective bargaining. In this step, there are two problems, one is whether the trade union has the right to bargaining, the other is the way as the employers'organization to get the qualification to bargaining. The second step is to preparing for collective bargaining, including ensuring the qualification of the representative of the bargaining parties and preparing the data for bargaining and the subject of the collective bargaining. The third step is to hold on the collective bargaining. The purpose of this step is to draft the collective agreement. The fourth step is to conclude collective agreement. There are two special collective agreements in South Africa, named agency shop agreements and closed shop agreements. In the agreements , the association rights of the employee are refrained. So the labor law has some clauses to regulate them.