Reflections on a Strike

The public servants strike that has been going on for the last weeks brings to mind some thoughts regarding strikes and what I believe were the original intentions of strikes as against what seems to have become the intention and manifestation of strikes in South Africa.

To a certain extent this post will be a living work as I formulate and extend my thinking as I have time to review and add to what I write here.

To a large extent the concept of strikes presupposes some kind of a free labour market. In other words workers are not compelled to work and employers are not compelled to employ.

It also does not require that employers employ workers to generate profit from the labour that is performed but does require that the relationship between employers and workers has some kind of financial viability. Deviating to one side of that financial viability is exploitation and to the other side is charity.

My understanding of the original intention of strikes was for workers to withhold their labour in order to demonstrate to their employer the value of that labour. This implies that the workers have a belief in the value that they deliver to their employer that is either not recognised or acknowledged by their employer.

When workers do not deliver enough value to their employer the withdrawal of that labour is not as significant as the workers would like and so their cause is undermined.

There should be no coercion to force others to withhold their labour. In other words no intimidation.

More to come ...