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| Pham Thi Thu Lan |
Since the reform from a command economy to a market economy in the early 1990s, labour relations in Vietnam have also changed, with more widespread disputes and strikes. Since 1995, when the Labour Code of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam first took effect, there were more than 6000 strikes[1], but what is remarkable is none of these were legal (The Labour Newspaper, 2017). A legal strike has to fulfill two criteria,: firstly, it can only take place after a procedure stipulated by the law which rules out rights-based strikes; and secondly, it has to be led by a trade union. However, all strike incidents in Vietnam appear to be sponteneous and unorganised, and thus are illegal and refered to as wildcat strikes.
Legal constraints on the right to strike
The procedure in Article 209 of the Labour Code of Vietnam provides for ‘interest-based’ strikes, that is strikes about labour disputes on matters not regulated by the law or in an existing collective bargaining agreement. Rights-based strikes are considered illegal and any dispute over rights is subject to settlement at court, which is often costly and time consuming. Court rules are unenforcable in a number of cases. Futhermore, the law concerning the right to strike provides for difficult and lengthly formal procedures (Articles 212 and 213 of the Labour Code). A collective labour dispute must first go through compulsory mediation and arbitration, where it is also decided whether the dispute is right-based or interest-based. These mechanisms often give trade unions and workers a hard time before any possiblity of going on strike. On top of that unions must fulfil heavily bureacratic requirements such as getting signatures of at least 50% of workers, specifying in writing the time, venue, scope and demands of the strike, providing names and addresses of contact persons from the trade union committee, and sending a copy of the strike decision to employers, the upper-level trade union and the state labour management agency in advance. It might take three weeks from the declaration of a labour dispute until a legal strike can take place.
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| Jan Theron |
When considering President Donald Trump’s attempts to keep foreign migrants out of the US, remember who put him in power. It was by all accounts working class people in areas decimated by neo-liberal policies. Remember also that Trump is trying to secure the support of US trade unions for his reconfiguration of these policies. One commentator has described this as ‘eat[ing] the American left’s lunch’ (Harris, 2017).
It should come as no surprise to South Africans that trade unions can support a racist, right wing government. That was how it was in 1976. The South African government of the time was also trying to keep out migrants who were not white, and the established union movement was more or less complicit. Those unions that did not actively support the bars to non-racial organisation imposed by apartheid did nothing to undermine them. In practice, their commitment to solidarity extended only to organised workers.
That year, I became general-secretary of a trade union (‘the union’). The union came from a tradition in which solidarity meant making common cause with unorganised workers everywhere. However, little evidence of this tradition remained by 1976. It had been corrupted organisationally, and there were leaders ‘eating the money’.
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| Edward Cottle |
A strike is a ‘social phenomenon of enormous complexity which, in its totality, is never susceptible to complete description, let alone complete explanation’ (Gouldner, 1954:65). The complexity of the meaning and implications of strikes often comes to the fore when offensive strikes – strikes where workers demand more than what they have in terms of wages and working conditions – force the attention of the state, capitalists and civil society. They lead to a varied interpretation not only of how events unfolded but also the impact they have made.
Strikes are a key manifestation of the class struggle over the distribution of national income and reform of the labour relations system. Offensive strikes can generate an extraordinary amount of pressure on the social system which often leads to structural changes such as the reconfiguring of the industrial relations system, the economy or the political system. Such events are referred to here as a turning point ( Legassick, 2012; Alexander, 2013; Webster, 2016).
Strikes in post-apartheid South Africa
In the immediate post-apartheid period, the trend was for strikes to increase in frequency, with the highest number of strikes in South African history – 1 324 strikes – taking place in 1998. From 2000 and 2009, however, strikes averaged 71 per annum, which was even lower than the 1960s, and these strikes were largely defensive in character.
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| Reingard Zimmer |
Trade unions around the world are facing severe attacks from employers on the right to strike. In the ILO, employers challenged the findings of the CEACR (Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations) that the right to strike should be part of Convention 87 on Freedom of Association. The recent decisions of the German Federal Labour Court (the BAG, in German) that third parties affected by a strike are not entitled to claim for damages,[1] is therefore tremendously important far beyond German borders. Accepting third parties’ compensation claims in Germany would have been a further limitation on the right to strike.
German air traffic controllers called for a limited strike at Stuttgart Airport in March 2009 against the airport operator. Flights were reduced during the strike. Several airlines claimed for damages, although they were only indirectly affected, on the basis of violation of property rights and infringement on their established and ongoing business. Furthermore, the claimants argued, air traffic controllers were not authorised to strike because they have a policing function. This became the first case in which the Federal Labour Court had to decide whether third parties who were not involved in collective bargaining could claim damages from the trade union if the strike was unlawful.
The court fortunately stated that third parties which have not been part of collective bargaining, but which suffered negative effects of a strike, do not have any claims against the striking union for compensation under common principles of tort law[2]. The court did not decide on the lawfulness of the strike because it had already denied the claim for reasons of tort law.
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| Thierry Schaffauser |
While Amnesty International adopted a policy favouring full decriminalisation of sex work earlier this year, the labour movement remains divided: should it see sex work as violence against women, to be abolished (Bindel 2003), or as a legitimate occupation needing to be unionised (Hardy 2010)? Sex workers have organised for their rights since at least the 1970s, even forming or joining trade unions in some cases, but the labour movement tends to ignore these efforts.
Sex workers do matter!
The debate around decriminalising sex work often focuses on questions such as whether or not we like the job, if we have been forced to engage in it, or if we have been raped as children. These questions are never asked about other workers before defending their rights. As sex workers, we accept that work is, most of the time, not a choice but an economic constraint, and we are able to distinguish between slavery, forced labour, and the consented exploitation of our work.
The conflation of sex work with trafficking conceals much about the reality of sex work. For instance, peep shows, bars, or massage parlours have to hide the fact that sex work happens. As a result, neither condoms nor information about safe sex are available in those workplaces. In some clubs, employers refuse to pay for heating while workers are almost naked. In others, sex workers now have to pay fees to enter when they used to be paid for their presence. Legal constraints on sex work allow websites and newspapers to censor our adverts as they please, making us pay again for new ones.
