The waves of strikes that we have seen in South Africa for some time now just have to stop. Nobody is benefiting, not even the workers who strike for higher pay.

The reason is that, as soon as one group succeeds in getting a pay increase, the next group strikes. Eventually, the general prices of goods and services go up, so the original pay increase is eroded.

The unions are just getting too powerful and are tending to use the power in an irresponsible manner. Unions are also, in effect, becoming political parties.
I was doing a lecture tour of the UK at the time that Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. One of her great successes was in breaking the power of the UK trade unions. At the time, many UK unions had started to become political parties, in effect. They were having congresses and passing resolutions on the Soviet Union, environmental protection, and all sorts of issues that were government issues, and not union issues. Thatcher said that the country could only have one government.

At the time, I was scheduled to visit a factory in the UK to meet the CEO, but, at a couple of hours’ notice, a strike erupted. I was told that I need not go, but could go if I wished. So I went. I arrived, to find the factory surrounded by workers, placards and all. Very noticeable were the marshals, standing around, carrying pick-axe handles.

During my meeting with management, they said that they believed that most workers did not want to strike, but that the pick-axe team was making the rules. On my way out, the crowd parted politely because I was a foreigner and clearly not part of the fight. I took the opportunity to talk quietly to some of the workers. They all told me that they did not want to strike. They said that, at trade union meetings, votes were taken by a show of hands and that the pick-axe guys stood around to check that nobody voted out of line.

One of the simple things that Thatcher did was to pass legislation that included a provision that all trade union votes had to be by secret ballot. She also made it compulsory for union office bearers to be elected by secret ballot.

The results were dramatic. Union membership was some 13-million in 1979 but rapidly fell to a figure of some six-million by 1996. By the end of 2012, this figure had dropped below six-million for the first time since the 1940s. Working days lost to strikes plummeted from 29.5-million in 1979 to only 278 000 five years later.

At the time, in the UK, it was recognised that many union leaders were using the union system to further their own political agendas rather than looking after the welfare of their members. Union members were made promises which, in reality, the unions just could not deliver, because the promises depended on government or management caving in to unrealistic demands.

Strikes would be organised not only to make their voices heard but also to cause maximum damage. For example, coal miners always went on strike in midwinter, when ordinary people really needed coal for home heating.

We are currently seeing the same type of tactics in South Africa. Strikes are being organised with damage in mind. The logic is that, if enough damage is caused to management or to the company, then the company will cave in and pay up.

Unions do not then also explain to workers that an almost certain consequence of a large wage hike will be that some percentage of workers will be laid off.