The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) strongly welcomes the historic Advisory Opinion delivered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 21 May 2026, confirming that the right to strike is protected under the International Labour Organisation’s Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (Convention No. 87).
This landmark judgment represents a massive victory for workers, trade unions and progressive movements across the world who have fought for decades to defend the right of workers to withdraw their labour in defence of their dignity, wages, conditions of work and broader social justice.
The Court ruled by ten votes to four that:
“the right to strike of workers and their organizations is protected under the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87).”
This is a decisive defeat for those employers, governments and anti-worker forces that have sought to weaken organised labour by arguing that Convention 87 does not protect the right to strike.
The ICJ correctly recognised that freedom of association is meaningless if workers are denied the practical tools necessary to defend themselves collectively. The Court stated clearly that workers’ organisations must have the right to organise their “activities” and “programmes”, and that strike action falls within those activities.
The Court further recognised that strike action is:
“one of the main activities engaged in and tools used by workers and their organizations to promote their interests and improve conditions of labour”.
SAFTU fully agrees.
Without the right to strike, workers are reduced to beggars before capital. The right to strike is not a privilege generously granted by employers or governments. It is a fundamental democratic right won through bitter struggle, sacrifice, imprisonment, dismissals and bloodshed by generations of workers internationally and in South Africa.
Our own history confirms this truth. Every major gain won by South African workers from collective bargaining rights, minimum wages, health and safety protections, maternity rights, unemployment insurance, provident funds and pension rights to the defeat of apartheid itself, was advanced through strikes, mass stayaways and collective worker action.
The ruling comes at a critical time globally and locally, where there is an aggressive offensive against organised labour. Across the world, workers face:
- austerity and neoliberal attacks;
- privatisation;
- casualisation and labour broking;
- union busting;
- criminalisation of protest;
- widening inequality;
- unemployment and poverty.
In South Africa, workers continue to confront starvation wages, mass unemployment, collapsing public services and increasing attempts to undermine collective bargaining and weaken militant unionism.
This judgment therefore strengthens the legal, political and moral foundation upon which workers and unions continue to resist exploitation.
SAFTU also welcomes the Court’s rejection of attempts to narrow or bureaucratically suffocate the interpretation of workers’ rights. The Court correctly affirmed that international law evolves through the lived struggles and practical realities of working people and not merely through narrow textual formalism.
Importantly, the Court recognised the long-standing position of ILO supervisory bodies, which for decades have affirmed that the right to strike is inseparable from freedom of association.
SAFTU calls on:
- all governments to fully respect and protect the right to strike;
- employers to cease victimisation and intimidation of striking workers;
- the South African government to reject all anti-worker amendments or interpretations that seek to weaken collective worker action;
- workers everywhere to defend and exercise this hard-won right responsibly and militantly in defence of social justice.
This historic ruling belongs to workers of the world.
An injury to one is an injury to all.
A statement was issued on behalf of SAFTU by the General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi.
For media inquiries, contact:
National Spokesperson
Newton Masuku
newtonm@saftu.org.za
0661682157
Media Officer
Asive Dyani
0719019564
