A co-publication with FrancoAngeli SRL

The Marikana massacre at a platinum mine in South Africa on 16 August 2012 reflected a deep social crisis in post-apartheid South Africa, but also marked a failure of voluntary collective bargaining. Against the backdrop of Marikana and other violent protest action in South Africa, Laws Against Strikes examines what went wrong with labour relations in South Africa and what can be done to stabilise and improve those relations.

In the European Union, the right to strike has been at the centre of the complex and controversial jurisprudence of the Court of Justice regarding industrial action, which started with the rulings in Viking and Laval in 2007. Although violence was not a factor in those cases, they brought into public focus the problem of disequilibrium between economic freedoms and fundamental social rights. Since 2008, the era of austerity measures in Europe has also called into question the adequacy of labour laws and has revealed that organisations representing collective interests lack the power to significantly influence macro-economic policy.

Laws Against Strikes, comprising contributions from South African, Italian and British legal scholars, examines the right to strike in periods of socio-economic crisis. The book aims to contribute to the debates on this issue, by comparing, where appropriate, the operation of the right to strike in South Africa with its operation in the European Union countries.

• Introduction – Bob Hepple, Rochelle le Roux and Silvana Sciarra
• The freedom to strike and its rationale – Bob Hepple
• The international and regional framework – Tonia Novitz
• Constitutionalising the right to strike – Halton Cheadle
• Representativeness and the legitimacy of bargaining agents – Luisa Corazza and Emma Fergus
• The role of trade unions in strikes – Alan Rycroft
• Limitations of the right to strike in the public sector and essential services – Tamara Cohen and Rochelle le Roux
• Liability, sanctions and other consequences of strike action – Tamara Cohen and Rochelle le Roux
• Political strikes – Giovanni Orlandini
• Running the gauntlet: Understanding policing responses and strategies to strike violence – Julie Berg and Simon Howell
• ‘Heritage and adjustment’: Some concluding remarks – Silvana Sciarra

• Judges
• Labour lawyers
• Trade unions
• Employer organisations