Treating labour as a non-commodity: the right to strike in the wake of the current employment laws and the new constitutional dispensation

Abstract

For a very long time, a price tag has been attached to the labour that a human person expends. An example of this commodification is slave trading from as early as the 17th century.1 Before beginning any discussion on the right to strike, it is essential for one to understand the meaning of a strike and commodification. The Employment Act defines a strike as “the cessation of work by employees acting in combination, or a concerted refusal or a refusal under a common understanding of employees to continue to work, for the purpose of compelling their employer or an employers’ organization of which their employer is a member, to accede to any demand in respect of a trade dispute”