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A strike is the ultimate weapon of employees, but frequently does more damage to the striking workers than to the employer they are hitting to try to get their demands accepted or grievances sorted out.
This is particularly so in Zimbabwe where no union has a strike fund, that is reserves which can be used to pay striking workers some sort of allowance while they are on strike. While employees have a right to strike, their employer has no obligation to pay them for the days they are not working; all the right to strike means is that if the strike is legal then the employer cannot fire them for striking.

But, without a strike fund that can pay out the minimum allowances to buy food and pay rent, we doubt that any striking labour force can sustain a strike beyond the next pay day. To put it crudely, employers can starve their employees back to work and can, while employees are on strike, hire temporary staff should they wish.

This is probably the main reason why strikes have achieved so little in Zimbabwe since the right to strike was granted to all workers soon after independence. In most cases where there have been strikes workers have ended off, in balance, worse off than if they had not struck.

Those who have gone for binding arbitration have often done a lot better and, if they had reasonable and justified grievances, have frequently “won” the dispute.

The other problem with a strike, as will many other ultimate weapons, is that it can destroy both sides by bankrupting a business, especially those that are already fragile.

In a world of full employment this might not deter strikers, but that is not the case at the moment.

To help find more effective and less damaging alternatives to a strike, the present Labour Act, while retaining the right to strike, tries to bring in a cooling-off period by having a requirement of 14 days notice before staff can legally strike and giving officers of the Department of Industrial Relations the power to demand that strikers show cause why they are striking.

The hope is that during the notice period cooler heads will prevail and seek arbitration. The show-cause powers can also suspend strike action while arbitration is sought.

Arbitration has the advantage that business continues while a respected outsider, or three outsiders if neither party can agree on a single person, can examine the grievances and the employer’s replies and then give an independent decision over what is the best way to resolve the dispute.

If used fully both sides agree in advance to accept the arbitration.

A question has now arisen over whether these delaying provisions of the Labour Act are constitutional in light of the absolute right to strike for non-security workers given in the new Constitution.

In the end we suspect that the Constitutional Court itself will have the final word.

Even if the present case is not referred to that court, appeals and counter appeals are likely to see the matter rise up the judicial ladder until it reaches the top.

Good lawyers can argue the matter either way. The binding decision is that given by the courts.

While it is important to clarify the legal position, it is, in our view, even more important to have a way of resolving labour disputes that does not involve strikes, but which is fair to both sides.

Whatever the courts eventually decide which conditions need to be met or do not need to be met to ensure a strike is legal, the practical fact will still remain that a strike is unlikely to succeed in Zimbabwe’s present economic and employment situation and that there are a lot of other more effective alternatives, from legal action to arbitration, that are far more likely to solve a dispute with minimum harm and damage. Workers do need an effective set of options if faced with injustice by their employer or faced with just bad employment practices that are not being reformed. But the strike weapon can be both ineffective and too damaging to both sides.