Abstract
South African labour law embraces orderly collective bargaining and the balance of power between employers and employees. Employees are guaranteed the right to strike in section 23 of the constitution while employers have a recourse to lockout in the LRA. Both these mechanisms ensure that parties have a tool to make their demands known to each other. Over the years, the question of whether employers could hire other people to perform the work of striking employees, also known as replacement labour, has been an issue of concern with some arguing that the use of replacement labour should be banned as it limits the right to strike, while others believe that it is an important tool which ensures the maintenance of production during strikes and lockouts. It is of more importance to know how replacement labour is regulated in South Africa. The recent case of NUMSA v Trenstar sheds some light on how and when replacement labour is permissible in our law and its limitations. This dissertation will critically evaluate and examine the regulation of replacement labour in South Africa as well as international law and the foreign jurisdiction of Canada to determine how replacement labour is regulated and whether it is an important tool in labour law that should be upheld or if it should be banned.