Public service doctors voted online to reject government's wage offer - the first known instance of a labour movement using electronic voting in the country.
The doctors' representative body, the South African Medical Association (Sama) conducted what it terms a “poll” in which 2 484 doctors, out of a total of about 7 000 working in the public sector, voted. Of those who voted, 2 261 rejected the government's salary proposals, while 223 voted in favour.
This represents a 91% rejection of the wage offer by the representative sample.
Sama is not considered a trade union, as doctors are classified as professionals. However, the association is affiliated to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).
Cosatu national spokesman Patrick Craven says he is unaware of any labour-type organisation having conducted a vote on a serious issue, such as wage negotiations, in this fashion before.
“I haven't thought about it, but this could very well be a first,” he says.
Sama communications officer Adri van Eerden says the association decided to conduct the vote in this manner as the population voting was controlled in that only certain members were allowed to vote. The Web site was already secure and this was the best way to keep the vote secret, she explains.
Renier Lategaan, Sama's Web site administrator, says the site is built on content management system Joomla, in which one of the modules is specifically designed for online voting.
“As the administrator, I can trace back to who voted and what they voted, but that is just part of the auditing process and remains secret. It is all captured in an FTL database.”
Lategaan notes the controls also allowed for the exclusion of those who were not allowed to vote. “We had a few faxes from people trying to vote and we could see immediately that they must be excluded.”
Painless procedure
Political commentator Daniel Silke says he does not know what kind of precedent this will set yet, but it is an intriguing development for electronic voting in this country.
“If the participants were aware of and approved the voting procedure, then it should be fine. However, this is only usually possible with a small and controlled voting group.”
Silke says electronic voting for issues of national importance, such as general elections, still has a long way to go before it is universally accepted.
Craven says trade unions with much larger memberships would probably find it difficult to implement such an electronic voting system, but it could possibly be done.
“Anything that helps the workers have more of a direct say in the decision-making outcome should be encouraged,” he adds.
One of the participating doctors says: “It was a painless procedure. I entered my password, ID number and voted either 'yes' or 'no', and was done with it.”
Share