IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ctw/wpaper/201402.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Trade Unions In An Emerging Economy: The Case Of South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Haroon Bhorat
  • Karmen Naidoo
  • Derek Yu

    (Development Policy Research Unit
    Director and Professor)

Abstract

This paper provides a historical overview of the South African trade union movement, followed by a brief discussion of the labour market legislation and institutions formed since 1994. Thereafter, a detailed evaluation of the impact of trade unions, legislation, and institutions on labour market outcomes in South Africa is provided, and it is found that despite a long history, trade union membership levels, their impact on average wage levels, and their pursuit of strike action, has resulted in relatively benign economic impacts within country and relative to other economies around the world. The political-economy effects shaping the country’s employment relations are then discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Haroon Bhorat & Karmen Naidoo & Derek Yu, 2014. "Trade Unions In An Emerging Economy: The Case Of South Africa," Working Papers 201402, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
  • Handle: RePEc:ctw:wpaper:201402
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.dpru.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/image_tool/images/36/DPRU%20WP201402.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2014
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. World Bank & International Finance Corporation, 2006. "Doing Business in 2006 : Creating Jobs," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 7421, December.
    2. Paula Armstrong & Janca Steenkamp, 2008. "South African Trade Unions: an Overview for 1995 to 2005," Working Papers 10/2008, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    3. Card, David & Krueger, Alan B, 1994. "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 772-793, September.
    4. Servaas van der Berg & Haroon Bhorat, 1999. "The Present as a Legacy of the Past: The Labour Market, Inequality and Poverty in South Africa," Working Papers 99029, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    5. Richard B. Freeman, 2009. "Labor Regulations, Unions, and Social Protection in Developing Countries: Market distortions or Efficient Institutions?," NBER Working Papers 14789, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Murray, Justin & van Walbeek, Corne, 2007. "Impact of the Sectoral Determination for Farm Workers on the South African Sugar Industry: Case Study of the KwaZulu-Natal North and South Coasts," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 46(1), pages 1-19, March.
    7. Haroon Bhorat & Elne Jacobs & Carlene van der Westhuizen, 2013. "Do Industrial Disputes Reduce Employment? Evidence from South Africa," Working Papers 13161, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    8. Haroon Bhorat & Ravi Kanbur & Natasha Mayet, 2013. "The impact of sectoral minimum wage laws on employment, wages, and hours of work in South Africa," IZA Journal of Labor & Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 2(1), pages 1-27, December.
    9. Haroon Bhorat & Sumayya Goga & Carlene Van Der Westhuizen, 2012. "Institutional Wage Effects: Revisiting Union And Bargaining Council Wage Premia In South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 80(3), pages 400-414, September.
    10. World Bank, 2013. "World Development Report 2014 [Informe sobre el desarrollo mundial 2014, Riesgo y oportunidad : la administración del riesgo como instrumento de desarrollo - Panorama general]," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 16092, December.
    11. Haroon Bhorat & Carlene van der Westhuizen & Sumayya Goga, 2009. "Analysing Wage Formation in the South African Labour Market: The Role of Bargaining Councils," Working Papers 09135, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    12. Haroon Bhorat & Ravi Kanbur & Benjamin Stanwix, 2014. "Estimating the Impact of Minimum Wages on Employment, Wages, and Non-Wage Benefits: The Case of Agriculture in South Africa," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1402-1419.
    13. Halton Cheadle, 2006. "Regulated Flexibility and Small Business: Revisiting the LRA and the BCEA," Working Papers 06109, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    14. Kristin F. Butcher & Cecilia Elena Rouse, 2001. "Wage Effects of Unions and Industrial Councils in South Africa," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 54(2), pages 349-374, January.
    15. Conradie, Beatrice, 2005. "Wages and wage elasticities for wine and table grapes in South Africa," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 44(1), pages 1-19, March.
    16. Lawrence, Sophia. & Ishikawa, Junko., 2005. "Trade union membership and collective bargaining coverage : statistical concepts, methods and findings," ILO Working Papers 994858633402676, International Labour Organization.
    17. repec:ilo:ilowps:485863 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Haroon Bhorat & Carlene van der Westhuizen, 2013. "Non-monetary dimensions of well-being in South Africa, 1993--2004: A post-apartheid dividend?," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(3), pages 295-314, September.
    19. Haroon Bhorat & Kalie Pauw & Liberty Mncube, 2009. "Understanding the Efficiency and Effectiveness of the Dispute Resolution System in South Africa:An Analysis of CCMA Data," Working Papers 09137, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dieter von Fintel, 2017. "Institutional wage-setting, labour demand and labour supply: Causal estimates from a South African pseudo-panel," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(1), pages 1-16, January.
    2. Mohimont, Jolan, 2022. "Welfare effects of business cycles and monetary policies in a small open emerging economy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    3. Sue Ledwith & Janet Munakamwe, 2015. "Gender, union leadership and collective bargaining: Brazil and South Africa," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 26(3), pages 411-429, September.
    4. Haroon Bhorat & Safia Khan, 2018. "Structural Change and Patterns of Inequality in the South African Labour Market," Working Papers 201801, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bhorat, Haroon & Naidoo, Karmen & Yu, Derek, 2014. "Trade unions in an emerging economy: The case of South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series 055, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Marlies Piek & Dieter von Fintel, 2020. "Sectoral minimum wages in South Africa: Disemployment by firm size and trade exposure," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(3), pages 462-482, May.
    3. Haroon Bhorat & Ravi Kanbur & Benjamin Stanwix, 2014. "Estimating the Impact of Minimum Wages on Employment, Wages, and Non-Wage Benefits: The Case of Agriculture in South Africa," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1402-1419.
    4. Haroon Bhorat & Ravi Kanbur & Natasha Mayet, 2013. "The impact of sectoral minimum wage laws on employment, wages, and hours of work in South Africa," IZA Journal of Labor & Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 2(1), pages 1-27, December.
    5. Haroon Bhorat & Tara Caetano & Benjamin Jourdan & Ravi Kanbur & Christopher Rooney & Benjamin Stanwix & Ingrid Woolard, 2016. "Investigating the Feasibility of a National Minimum Wage for South Africa," Working Papers 201601, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    6. Belman, Dale. & Wolfson, Paul J., 2016. "What does the minimum wage do in developing countries? : A review of studies and methodologies," ILO Working Papers 994893283402676, International Labour Organization.
    7. Miracle Ntuli & Prudence Kwenda, 2013. "Labour Unions and Wage Inequality Among African Men in South Africa," Working Papers 13159, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    8. John Knight, 2021. "A Tale of Two Countries and Two Stages: South Africa, China and the Lewis Model," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 89(2), pages 143-172, June.
    9. Haroon Bhorat & Ravi Kanbur & Benjamin Stanwix, 2017. "Minimum Wages in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Primer," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank Group, vol. 32(1), pages 21-74.
    10. Haroon Bhorat & Karmen Naidoo & Morné Oosthuizen & Kavisha Pillay, 2015. "Demographic, employment, and wage trends in South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2015-141, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    11. Dieter von Fintel, 2017. "Institutional wage-setting, labour demand and labour supply: Causal estimates from a South African pseudo-panel," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(1), pages 1-16, January.
    12. Susan Hayter & Bradley Weinberg, 2011. "Mind the Gap: Collective Bargaining and Wage Inequality," Chapters, in: Susan Hayter (ed.), The Role of Collective Bargaining in the Global Economy, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Haroon Bhorat, 2012. "A Nation in Search of Jobs: Six Possible Policy Suggestions for Employment Creation in South Africa," Working Papers 12150, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    14. Mohimont, Jolan, 2022. "Welfare effects of business cycles and monetary policies in a small open emerging economy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    15. Haroon Bhorat & Karmen Naidoo & Morné Oosthuizen & Kavisha Pillay, 2015. "Demographic, employment, and wage trends in South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series 141, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    16. Mr. Christopher S Adam & Mr. Edward F Buffie, 2020. "The Minimum Wage Puzzle in Less Developed Countries: Reconciling Theory and Evidence," IMF Working Papers 2020/023, International Monetary Fund.
    17. Haroon Bhorat & Safia Khan, 2018. "Structural Change and Patterns of Inequality in the South African Labour Market," Working Papers 201801, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    18. Susan Hayter, 2015. "Unions and collective bargaining," Chapters, in: Janine Berg (ed.), Labour Markets, Institutions and Inequality, chapter 4, pages 95-122, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Meghan J. Millea & Jon P. Rezek & Brian Shoup & Joshua Pitts, 2017. "Minimum Wages in a Segmented Labor Market: Evidence from South Africa," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 335-359, September.
    20. Ham, Andrés, 2018. "The Consequences of Legal Minimum Wages in Honduras," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 135-157.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Trade unions; labour market efficiency; wage premium; strikes; political economy; South Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F50 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - General
    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General
    • J51 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects
    • J52 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Dispute Resolution: Strikes, Arbitration, and Mediation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ctw:wpaper:201402. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Waseema Petersen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dpuctza.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.