Godfrey, Shane, Maree, Johann, du Toit, Darcy and Theron, Jan (2010) Collective Bargaining in South Africa: Past, Present and Future? Claremont, Cape Town: Juta & Co.
http://www.jutalaw.co.za/catalogue
Since the 1980s centralised collective bargaining and trade union membership have been on the decline in much of the industrialised world. This has however not been the case in South Africa where centralised bargaining and trade union membership have increased. Centralised collective bargaining has remained at the core of wage negotiations and bargaining councils (formerly industrial councils) the durable institutions of collective bargaining.
Collective Bargaining in South Africa provides a thorough and critical analysis of the state of collective bargaining in South Africa. It analyses the bargaining process and institutions from sociological, historical, legal and economic perspectives, thereby providing an inter-disciplinary perspective on the system. It shows that the unique history of South Africa has left trade unions and bargaining councils in a position of relative strength, but global labour market forces and trends are posing a serious threat to the effectiveness of collective bargaining. The book does not provide easy solutions to the challenges, but a number of alternative directions policy-makers could pursue to try to ensure the effectiveness of collective bargaining in future.
