Public Service Labour Relations in a Democratic South Africa, 1994-1998

The democratic South Africa boasts some of the most advanced labor legislation in the world, allowing public service workers to enjoy trade union and collective bargaining rights for the first time in the country's history. These developments set the stage for public servants to bring their conditions of service into line with the industrial relations 'best practice' in the private sector.

The problem of addressing workers' demands and concerns about job security; transforming the state into a more effective agent of development; and redressing the legacies of discrimination and authoritarianism is likely to generate considerable conflict between workers and managers and between different groups of workers. Indeed, the mass action in the education, health and police sectors, which made international headlines in August 1999, demonstrated that labor-management strife in the public service is not a narrow industrial relations issue of interest to the parties alone. The outcomes of these conflicts will have crucial and long-lasting consequences for the transformation of the state as an institution, and therefore for the governments's ability to promote fiscal integrity, economic development and service delivery.

The chapters in this volume are based on critical assessments of contemporary developments in the public service drawn from original research by a range of contributors, including public servants, academics and independent researchers, all specialists in this field. The contributions thus combine depth of research and critical appraisal with privileged insight into recent policy developments.