Cape Town - The Constitutional Court has handed down a unanimous judgment in an application for leave to appeal a judgment and order of the Labour Appeal Court, which interdicted striking farmworkers in Grabouw in 2019.
The matter concerned the competence of a court to grant interdictory relief against 173 fruit farmworkers who went on strike to challenge their apartheid-era, single-sex hostel housing and living conditions at the Oak Valley Estate in Grabouw.
The Social Economic Rights Institute (SERI) represented the Commercial, Stevedoring, Agricultural and Allied Workers’ Union (CSAAWU) and workers in their opposition to an overbroad interdict prohibiting the union, striking workers and unknown persons from protesting at Oak Valley Estates.
In May 2019, the CSAAWU began a protected strike under picketing rules established by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), demanding an increase in salary from R15 to R18 per hour, an end to labour brokers, and the unfair and discriminatory housing practices.
Oak Valley launched an urgent interdict in the Labour Court which granted interim relief against the CSAAWU, the individual respondents and the unidentified respondents, with some of the striking workers returning to work.
When it approached the Labour Court for final relief, Oak Valley sought relief only against the “unidentifiable respondents”, the CSAAWU and employees who remained on strike.
The CSAAWU defended this, arguing that the Labour Court lacked jurisdiction regarding the alleged non-compliance with the picketing rules; the interdict sought was unduly broad and interfered with lawful conduct; and that Oak Valley had failed to link any of the unlawful conduct complained of to the respondents.
The Labour Court accepted that it could not interdict the “unidentifiable respondents”, but rejected the CSAAWU’s defences.
In a unanimous judgment penned by Justice Leona Theron on Tuesday, the Constitutional Court held that mere participation in a strike or protest in which there is unlawful conduct was insufficient to adequately link the respondent to that conduct.
It further said the required link could be shown, however, if it was established that the strikers or protesters had committed the unlawful conduct as a cohesive group.
SERI attorney Nkosinathi Sithole said the judgment confirmed that employers could not paint with the same brush people who were protesting to vindicate their constitutional right lawfully, with those who were committing unlawful conduct without identifying them and extricating them.
“If Oak Valley had followed this law correctly, the workers would have proceeded with the strike and got their demands addressed. Today their rights have been vindicated,” he said.
Oak Valley managing director Christopher Rawbone-Viljoen said while they accepted the judgment, they feared that it would have far reaching consequences for business owners, in their role as employers, in strike actions which he said were a daily reality in the country.
“The judgment now requires employers to link each individual employee to unlawful acts during a strike, which of course is often not possible, or practical given that these individuals are often wearing balaclavas, are members of the community whose details are unknown or commit these acts under cover of darkness,” Rawbone-Viljoen said.
mthuthuzeli.ntseku@inl.co.za