A critical study of the rights of workers to strike in Zambia

Abstract

The rights of the workers to strike is the only weapon left in the hands of the workers to fight for improved salaries and better conditions of employment. This right must be protected by ensuring that the law in place does not impede the workers from carrying out a legal strike. The strike in its broad significance has a reference to a dispute between an employer and his or her workers, in the course of which there is a concerted suspension of employment. Because it is an expensive weapon, the strike is generally labours' last resort in connection with industrial controversies. This essay examines the rights of the workers to strike in Zambia and how the workers have been afforded such rights. It further looks at the international provisions on the right of the workers to strike and the conditions attached to the enjoyment of these rights. The essay examines at the protection given to these rights and how far that protection goes. The essay further identifies difficulties in the local law that make it difficult for the workers to go on a legal strike. The essay observes that the workers can not go on a legal strike because of the requirements that seem to be too difficult to be met by the workers and their unions. The Labour and Industrial relations Act, Chapter 269 of the Laws of Zambia, is of no help in workers taking a legal strike because of the provisions of having a strike ballot in the law for workers to legally strike. In conclusion the essay acknowledges these problems in the Industrial and labour Relations Act and hopes that the law could be reformed by making necessary amendments to the statute. It is my sincere hope that this paper will contribute to the understanding of the rights of workers to strike and why certain strikes re termed as illegal and or legal strikes in Zambia.