Like Father, like Son

Growing up in Cologne, I know that there are not only four, but in fact five seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and … Carnival! In the fifth season, the streets are filled with people in colourful costumes, loudly singing and dancing.

Coming to South Africa, to my surprise I soon realised that there are also five seasons here – sadly Carnival is no longer one of them. Instead, South Africa has Strike Season, which is probably not all that different…


From June onwards, South Africa’s Trade Unions – representing gold miners and steel workers, government and hospital employees, bus drivers and waste collectors – strike for wage increases and better working conditions. Typically, a Union will demand an 18% pay increase (far above the average inflation rate of around 5%) while employers will offer 7%. Outraged workers then take to the streets marching for weeks and paralysing the entire economy. Rubbish does not get collected, petrol stations run out of fuel and supermarkets run out of stock.



After a month of strikes (also dubbed "Economic Terrorism"), employees normally settle for an 8% increase and declare this a success over profit-driven employees. What they do not realise is that every week they spend striking and not working, costs them 2% of their annual salary. A two week strike to improve the wage offer from 5 to 8% therefore actually means that employees lose 1% of their annual income... try explain that to a disgruntled miner!

Topping the global strike ranking, South Africa lost 17.8 million work days due to industrial action in 2011; workers lost an estimated R3 billion in salaries; the damage to the economy was over R9 billion and the impact on investor confidence cannot even be measured.

But strangely it doesn’t even seem to matter much that workers and everyone else ends up worse off – striking has become a social norm and I am sure that workers actually enjoy it:

“I feel like a hero!”

“(The loss in income) is a sacrifice that I was prepared to make!”

“We may not have achieved 100% of what we set for ourselves, but at least employers are also feeling the pinch.. As much as we are feeling the pinch, they are feeling it more!”

And why shouldn’t they enjoy it? After all, this is Africa, a strike here is the same as Carnival in Cologne: colourful parades, dancing and singing.

Less entertaining and more concerning than the “normal” industrial action is that now even children have resorted to “educational” action: Students in a school in Johannesburg have gone on strike and boycotted class for the past days. They demanded textbooks for everyone, proper sanitation and the dismissal of their principal due to allegedly mismanaging funds.

While this does not seem like an unreasonable request, the “strikes” did sadly not make headlines for pupils demanding to be educated, but for the strike becoming violent. The students intimidated and molested other students, teachers and police officers; vandalised; and damaged police cars breaking windows and ripping off doors. The City of Joburg had to resort to legal action to stop the violent protest and some pupils now face criminal charges.

Frighteningly, this suggests to me that South Africa’s strike culture is becoming more wide spread and socially acceptable and indeed a “culture”. People of all ages seem to think that laying down work, destroying property and threatening others is a good way to make one’s opinion heard and achieve one's goals.

South Africa has very high rates of youth unemployment (42% of people under 30 and 51% of people between 18 and 25 have no job) and unless the Government finds ways to give them hope and jobs, these young people may soon take to the streets to strike for their rights.

And if young disillusioned people who think that violence is a useful tool to achieve change take on the streets, we may well get another season: Arab Spring, London Summer… let’s hope we don’t have to prepare ourselves for a South African Autumn.