The Congress of South African Trade Unions will be picketing at Nedlac Offices tomorrow during the Section 77 plenary meeting on the ongoing Economic Crisis and Job Losses.The Federation will be picketing to express it disappointment and disapproval of Nedlac’s mismanagement of our previous application that resulted in the Labour Court issuing an interdict against our planned strike. The Federation followed all processes and Nedlac issued the certificate to strike. Nedlac was cited as a third responded in the BUSA application and its failure to defend its decision remains very troubling for workers, who are witnessing the decimation of their livelihoods through retrenchments.
This picket symbolises the worker’s growing anger against retrenchments and the mismanagement of the economy. COSATU remains adamant that the road to workers resistance requires not only responses to unpopular policies but also a united national offensive involving all those who are opposed to voluntary austerity measures and the reckless and mechanical introduction of mechanisation and automation.
We are calling on all workers to join the picket and not allow petty differences to stand in the way of creating the broadest possible opposition and resistance to retrenchments and the government’s voluntary austerity measures.
Workers need to remain battle-ready for the intense battles ahead. The first response of an embattled capitalist economy is for the bosses to place more and more of the economic burden of a crisis on the shoulders of the working people.
The country’s unaccountable private sector is decimating jobs not because it faces a crisis of profit but because of voracious greed. They have been hoarding cash, investing outside of the country and blackmailing our weak government demanding more concessions without delivering on their promises.
Employers are abusing mechanisation and digitisation by retrenching workers without developing a jobs-plan that will ensure a just transition to new technologies. The toxic relationship between our government and the private sector is the most cynical one and it has left many workers and citizens facing a life of brute survival and helplessness.
The patrimonial capitalist of South Africa that has allowed the ruling class to accumulate massive fortunes needs to take full responsibility for the critical shortage of skilled workers that now act as an obstacle on the road of advance into the technological age.
Many of the economic problems facing this country are inextricably linked to its character as a capitalist state in which race domination plays a key role in the exploitative process. The beneficiaries of apartheid inherited privileges need to take full responsibility for the critical shortages of skilled and semi-skilled workers.
Our lethargic government should also shoulder the blame because it has mismanaged the education system and skills development through corruption and ineptitude.
The details of the picket are as follows:
Time : 14:00
Date : 25 October 2019
Address : NO 14A Jellico Avenue, Nedlac House, Rosebank.
Issued by COSATU
Sizwe Pamla (Cosatu National Spokesperson)
Tel: 011 339 4911
Fax: 011 339 5080
Cell: 060 975 6794