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Moneyweb reports that the Labour Court (LC) in Johannesburg has ruled that the strike notice issued by the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) to the Road Accident Fund (RAF) in February was defective.
Judge Robert Lagrange added that the intended strike that was interdicted by the RAF remained unprotected in the absence of an appropriate strike notice being issued. The RAF was granted an interim interdict by the LC in March this year against the planned strike at the fund’s offices. The judgment handed down on Monday followed a hearing last month on the return date in respect of the interim interdict. Referring to case law, Judge Lagrange said it was not necessary to stipulate the exact time the strike would commence, provided the union had given 48 hours’ notice of the strike, and also not essential for the strike notice to stipulate the number of employees who might participate in the strike. However, Lagrange said the strike notice issued by Numsa was completely devoid of any particulars about the demands the union was making which, if acceded to by the RAF, would make the strike unnecessary. He added: “The strike notice in question was devoid of factual content regarding the nature of the demands. If such a notice was considered acceptable, the same notice could be issued for virtually any strike irrespective of the demands in question. That would defeat an important purpose of issuing a strike notice.” In a ruling on Numsa’s locus standi, Lagrange said there was no restriction on a union’s authority to call for a strike based on whether the potential striking employees were its members or not.
- Read the full original of the informative report in the above regard by Roy Cokayne at Moneyweb
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