Wits Industrial Psychology- Psyc 3022

NAME: KGATLHISO MAKO

STUDENT NUMBER: 569516

MODULE: PSYC 3022

DUE DATE: 5 October 2015

Word count without the sub-headings: 2015

Word count with the sub-headings: 2057

1

Introduction

‘You must kill the bastards if they threaten you or your community’ (The Gaurdian,

2015). The quotation above mentioned illustrates what the following essay will

discuss in detail on the even that occurred during the Marikana strike through the

viewpoint of the socio- political-economic embeddedness of justice in employment

relations

Strikes in a South African frame of reference context

The general definition of strikes is the refusal to carry on working because of a

dispute with an employer about pay levels, working conditions. In the LRA there are

three elements that must abide by in order to constitute as a strike which are ‘the

refusal to work (Swanepoel, Nel, Kirsten, Erasmus, & Poiset, 2012)’, a specific

purpose relating to a number of mutual interest between the employer and employee’

(Swanepoel, Nel, Kirsten, Erasmus, & Poiset, 2012) and lastly ‘concerted or

collective action’ (Swanepoel, Nel, Kirsten, Erasmus, & Poiset, 2012).

South Africa is no strangers to strikes where the activity of the strike often turn into

violence due to certain demands of the request by the worker are not met. Hence on a

global scale the strikes in South Africa are immensely unique. The prevalence of the

strikes that happen in society mostly in relevance of South Africa is based on radical

perspective. In my opinion this theory of the radical perspective suits the action of

strikes because it draws in on the Marxist approach where underlying notion

fundamentally reflects ‘a class conflict’ (Brooks, 2006) system and that there are

essential

‘powerful social/ structural and political divisions in society’ (Brooks,

2006) for this reason it makes union alliances impossible and conflict inevitable.

In the Lonmin Marikana’s strike that later...