Trade union participation in social and labour plan and corporate social responsibility planning and execution to placate community relations in the South African mining sector

Abstract

Despite the vast amounts spent by the mining industry through corporate social responsibility (CSR) and Social and Labour Plan (SLP) initiatives (Davids, Guedes, & Kell, 2016), regular community protests continue to severely disrupt mining operations, leading to billions of rand in lost production (Seccombe, 2017). Simultaneously, trade unions, in an attempt to revitalise declining membership, have increasingly mobilised constituents around exactly those societal challenges that the CSR and SLP spend try to address (Gahan & Pekarek, 2013; Holgate, 2015; Ibsen & Tapia, 2017; Kelly, 2015b). This research explores ways in which mining firms can including trade unions during the planning and execution of their CSR and/or SLP initiatives to alleviate community-related disruptions. It fills a gap in the literature on political CSR and social movement theory, which currently lacks insight into the mechanics of how, and conditions under which, a trade union and a mining firm would jointly craft and take responsibility for the success of firmsÕ CSR and SLP initiatives. A total of ten semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with purposively selected participants: six with representatives of mining houses and four with representatives of trade unions whose members are employed in the mining sector. A thematic content analysis was used to analyse the interview transcripts. The results indicate that there is a zone of mutual interest where both trade unions and companies can work jointly to address community-related disruption through collective CSR deliberation. However, to do so, business leaders need to work proactively to build the transparency and trust required to bring trade unions to the table. The study suggests that it may be possible to attribute partial responsibility for sound community relations to trade unions. This could be done by way of the first phase of firm-led union co-responsibilisation, followed by the methodical inclusion of trade unions in the process of collective diagnosis and prognosis to address community challenges. Trade unions have the potential to be a powerful ally in the quest to quell (mining) community-related disruptions.