The 2019 SASBO Bank Workers’ Strike in South Africa: unpacking labour responses to the Fourth Industrial Revolution
- Authors: Moyo, Wisdom Ntandoyenkosi
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: Industry 4.0 , Fourth Industrial Revolution , Banks and banking South Africa , SASBO , Labor unions South Africa , Strikes and lockouts Bank employees South Africa , Working class South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/406774 , vital:70306
- Description: The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is a global phenomenon, affecting workers and trade unions worldwide with the increased automation, including digitisation, of work. Although the 4IR has often been presented as an impersonal technological force that society must just accept, it is in fact rooted in the evolution of capitalist society: it is the latest in a series of industrial revolutions and restructurings of the labour process. These are systemic occurrences, based in class struggles around the extension of management control of every part of work, and replacing workers with machinery; it must then be seen in the context of a history of Taylorism, Fordism and neo-Fordism, and their local expressions, such as racial Fordism in South Africa. The roll-out and the socio-economic effects of the 4IR are therefore shaped by inequality and power, and look to be dire for the working-class in a South Africa that already has record unemployment rates. In the local banking sector, the 4IR has been associated with a wave of retrenchments and branch closures. Faced with this situation, the South African Society of Bank Officials (SASBO), the biggest and oldest union in the finance sector, then with around 73 000 members, tried to hold a mass strike in late 2019. Blocked by the Labour Court, this would have been the union’s biggest strike in a century. It followed from a longer campaign by SASBO to halt job losses, ensure redeployment and reskilling for affected bank workers, and win an agreement for these aims with the banks. The union undertook research on the 4IR and sought to win support from banks, as well as government departments and other unions, for an alternative, worker-friendly roll-out of the 4IR. The decision to strike took place after extensive engagements with banks and stakeholders like government failed, the banks proceeding with retrenchments: the union faced an unprecedented challenge and was on the defensive. This dissertation maps SASBO’s campaign around the 4IR, using the Power Resources Approach (PRA), and assesses its approach. It also tries to show how an analysis of a moderate, older white-collar union like SASBO enriches South African labour studies. A qualitative methodology was used in this research to understand the issue at hand, using documents and semi-structured interviews with SASBO National Executive Committee members. The key findings are that the 4IR will not spare white-collar jobs and presents an unprecedented challenge to unions. There is an urgent need for union revitalisation, including new ways to organise effective responses to technological change. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Sociology, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-10-14
- Authors: Moyo, Wisdom Ntandoyenkosi
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: Industry 4.0 , Fourth Industrial Revolution , Banks and banking South Africa , SASBO , Labor unions South Africa , Strikes and lockouts Bank employees South Africa , Working class South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/406774 , vital:70306
- Description: The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is a global phenomenon, affecting workers and trade unions worldwide with the increased automation, including digitisation, of work. Although the 4IR has often been presented as an impersonal technological force that society must just accept, it is in fact rooted in the evolution of capitalist society: it is the latest in a series of industrial revolutions and restructurings of the labour process. These are systemic occurrences, based in class struggles around the extension of management control of every part of work, and replacing workers with machinery; it must then be seen in the context of a history of Taylorism, Fordism and neo-Fordism, and their local expressions, such as racial Fordism in South Africa. The roll-out and the socio-economic effects of the 4IR are therefore shaped by inequality and power, and look to be dire for the working-class in a South Africa that already has record unemployment rates. In the local banking sector, the 4IR has been associated with a wave of retrenchments and branch closures. Faced with this situation, the South African Society of Bank Officials (SASBO), the biggest and oldest union in the finance sector, then with around 73 000 members, tried to hold a mass strike in late 2019. Blocked by the Labour Court, this would have been the union’s biggest strike in a century. It followed from a longer campaign by SASBO to halt job losses, ensure redeployment and reskilling for affected bank workers, and win an agreement for these aims with the banks. The union undertook research on the 4IR and sought to win support from banks, as well as government departments and other unions, for an alternative, worker-friendly roll-out of the 4IR. The decision to strike took place after extensive engagements with banks and stakeholders like government failed, the banks proceeding with retrenchments: the union faced an unprecedented challenge and was on the defensive. This dissertation maps SASBO’s campaign around the 4IR, using the Power Resources Approach (PRA), and assesses its approach. It also tries to show how an analysis of a moderate, older white-collar union like SASBO enriches South African labour studies. A qualitative methodology was used in this research to understand the issue at hand, using documents and semi-structured interviews with SASBO National Executive Committee members. The key findings are that the 4IR will not spare white-collar jobs and presents an unprecedented challenge to unions. There is an urgent need for union revitalisation, including new ways to organise effective responses to technological change. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Sociology, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-10-14
SASBO Code of ethics
- SASBO
- Authors: SASBO
- Date: 2000
- Subjects: SASBO
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/160565 , vital:40475
- Description: Formed as a trade union in 1916, SASBO's primary objectives are to improve the conditions of service and protect the interests of its members, individually and collectively, in relation to their employers and otherwise, and generally to raise their status. Operating in the South African finance sector, SASBO identifies with the ethics and conventions of finance professionals and has always encouraged sound industrial relations with employers and/or their organisations, with the intention of regulating conflict as peacefully and constructively as possible by endeavouring to settle disputes by conciliatory methods. The union has always been, and continues to be, committed to fair and honest dealings, and integrity, in its interaction with all its stakeholders, this in the fundamental belief that SASBO's operation and business should be conducted honestly, fairly and within the parameters of labour and other laws.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2000
- Authors: SASBO
- Date: 2000
- Subjects: SASBO
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/160565 , vital:40475
- Description: Formed as a trade union in 1916, SASBO's primary objectives are to improve the conditions of service and protect the interests of its members, individually and collectively, in relation to their employers and otherwise, and generally to raise their status. Operating in the South African finance sector, SASBO identifies with the ethics and conventions of finance professionals and has always encouraged sound industrial relations with employers and/or their organisations, with the intention of regulating conflict as peacefully and constructively as possible by endeavouring to settle disputes by conciliatory methods. The union has always been, and continues to be, committed to fair and honest dealings, and integrity, in its interaction with all its stakeholders, this in the fundamental belief that SASBO's operation and business should be conducted honestly, fairly and within the parameters of labour and other laws.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2000
SASBO Strikes and lockout policies
- SASBO
- Authors: SASBO
- Date: 2000
- Subjects: SASBO
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/160585 , vital:40477
- Description: This information and policy document has been produced in response to a resolution adopted by the SASBO National Congress in October 1998. The information provided is a summary of the rights of employees with regard to strike and other industrial actions, and of their employers' recourse to lockout. SASBO members wishing to acquire a more detailed knowledge of strikes and lock-outs should refer to Chapter IV of the Labour Relations Act of 1995 for the full text of the relevant legislation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2000
- Authors: SASBO
- Date: 2000
- Subjects: SASBO
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/160585 , vital:40477
- Description: This information and policy document has been produced in response to a resolution adopted by the SASBO National Congress in October 1998. The information provided is a summary of the rights of employees with regard to strike and other industrial actions, and of their employers' recourse to lockout. SASBO members wishing to acquire a more detailed knowledge of strikes and lock-outs should refer to Chapter IV of the Labour Relations Act of 1995 for the full text of the relevant legislation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2000
SASBO and Dishonesty
- SASBO
- Authors: SASBO
- Date: 1993
- Subjects: SASBO
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/160614 , vital:40480
- Description: In the early 1990’s when internal fraud, theft and dishonesty became an issue of major concern, SASBO members decided to state their position on all forms of employee dishonesty. They expressed the view that criminals should be rooted out of the finance sector, because, inter alia: People of low integrity have no place in finance. Criminals also defraud their colleagues. Reduced profits through fraud would mean lower pay increases. Criminals pollute the working environment and their actions cast suspicion on everyone around them. When crimes take place, innocent employees are accused of not exercising sufficient vigilance and are subject to disciplinary actions, including dismissal. The SASBO National Council, therefore, instructed their Union not to protect guilty personnel. Yet they believed that accused members should receive a fair hearing. As a Union representing the interests of employees in a highly vulnerable workplace such as that found in the finance sector, SASBO, then, had a duty to condemn staff defalcation and fraud in the strongest terms, and to play whatever role that was necessary in ensuring that offenders were removed from the system. The need for SASBO to have a documented policy on the handling of cases involving theft, fraud and dishonesty, when its members were accused of being involved, was obvious. Applying the above principles, and aided by its legal advisors, SASBO’s National Council, in September 1993, adopted the following policy on dishonesty:
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1993
- Authors: SASBO
- Date: 1993
- Subjects: SASBO
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/160614 , vital:40480
- Description: In the early 1990’s when internal fraud, theft and dishonesty became an issue of major concern, SASBO members decided to state their position on all forms of employee dishonesty. They expressed the view that criminals should be rooted out of the finance sector, because, inter alia: People of low integrity have no place in finance. Criminals also defraud their colleagues. Reduced profits through fraud would mean lower pay increases. Criminals pollute the working environment and their actions cast suspicion on everyone around them. When crimes take place, innocent employees are accused of not exercising sufficient vigilance and are subject to disciplinary actions, including dismissal. The SASBO National Council, therefore, instructed their Union not to protect guilty personnel. Yet they believed that accused members should receive a fair hearing. As a Union representing the interests of employees in a highly vulnerable workplace such as that found in the finance sector, SASBO, then, had a duty to condemn staff defalcation and fraud in the strongest terms, and to play whatever role that was necessary in ensuring that offenders were removed from the system. The need for SASBO to have a documented policy on the handling of cases involving theft, fraud and dishonesty, when its members were accused of being involved, was obvious. Applying the above principles, and aided by its legal advisors, SASBO’s National Council, in September 1993, adopted the following policy on dishonesty:
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1993
- «
- ‹
- 1
- ›
- »