Workers will take to the streets on Wednesday, 7 October, as the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and its affiliates mark World Day for Decent Work with nationwide marches and pickets to highlight the plight of workers.
This year’s World Day for Decent Work takes place at a time when workers are under siege from rampant retrenchments, non-compliance with the National Minimum Wage (NMW), increasing casualization of jobs, escalating attacks on collective bargaining rights and lack of social protection and retirement funds.
Since coming into effect in 2019, the NMW has increased by 100% for domestic workers, risen by 66% for farm workers and by 50% for all other workers attached to it. Yet compliance remains a challenge as an estimated 40% of workers are still paid less than the NMW. COSATU calls for stronger enforcement of the NMW and other labour rights and for government to expedite the recruitment of 10 000 additional labour inspectors announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa during the State of the Nation Address.
Despite a staggeringly high unemployment rate of 43.8%, employers continue to retrench workers. Gaming, hospitality and entertainment group, Sun International, is one such employer. The group plans to cut jobs across several casinos despite its physical casinos returning to growth and delivering revenue of R3.4 billion in the six months to end of June. Sun International has not specified the number of jobs that will be affected by the Section 189 process.
COSATU and its affiliate, the South African Commercial Catering and Allied Workers Union (SACCAWU) will be marching to Sun City in the North West and Grand West Casino in the Western Cape to protest the planned retrenchments. COSATU and SACCAWU reject the job cuts and have called on Provincial Gambling and Gaming Boards to investigate whether Sun International is breaching the employment, transformation, and public-interest commitments tied to its gaming licenses.
The retail sector will also be in the Federation’s crosshairs on Wednesday. COSATU Gauteng marches in Johannesburg and Tshwane will deliver memorandums to Massmart, demanding the reinstatement of the nearly 600 workers dismissed by Makro, for participating in a legal, protected strike in 2021. Massmart claimed the workers violated picketing rules. Adding insult to injury, Massmart sued SACCAWU for R9.4 million alleging workers damaged property, blocked entrances to stores, therefore causing it to lose revenue. But in March this year, the Constitutional Court found in favour of the union, dismissing the Walmart subsidiary’s claim. Despite this, Massmart is yet to reinstate the dismissed workers.
In Kwa-Zulu Natal, COSATU and SACCAWU will raise the issue of occupational and workplace safety sharply, particularly for workers handling cash. A call for thereview of till-short and till-over policies will also be made. Concerns regarding safe and reliable transport for workers on early and late shifts will also be raised, as well as unilateral reductions in working hours and take-home pay, insecure flexi-time employment and demands for guaranteed or full-time hours.
Attacks on collective bargaining in the form of breaches of collective agreements, unpaid hours, union bashing and failure to recognise or engage with unions, inadequate parental and other benefits, as well as unresolved worker grievances will also form part of issues requiring urgent attention.
COSATU KZN will also form an integral part of the march in Durban by its affiliate Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA). Issues to be raised forcefully during the protest include the immediate filling of funded vacant posts including the provision of recruitment and appointment plans per facility, with priority given to facilities experiencing shortage of nurses. Protestors will also call for an end to critical shortage of medicine and medical equipment as well as demand the immediate absorption of General Nursing graduates.
The review of cash-handling policies will also be brought up sharply in lunchtime demonstrations organised by COSATU in Limpopo; so, will the demand for the introduction of a provident fund at Jumbo Foods in Polokwane. The demonstrations will also highlight the escalating cost of living given the high cost of electricity and rising fuel price due to the ongoing war in the Persian Gulf.
In Mpumalanga, the Federation and its affiliate, the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) will put a spotlight on the socio-economic challenges experienced by workers at municipal level. In dozens of municipalities, workers go for months without receiving salaries, while their pension fund and medical aid contributions are also withheld. The timing is opportune, with the Local Government Elections fast approaching, simultaneously putting a spotlight on service delivery failures.
Workers are aggrieved by increasing casualisation of jobs and the indefinite use of labour brokers. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is specifically pained by employers in the metal and manufacturing sectors disguising youth training programmes to systematically exploit young people as cheap, dispensable labour to displace permanent workers and dodge bargained agreements. COSATU and NUM are undeterred and will continue to oppose the unbundling of Eskom.
COSATU in the Northern Cape along with its affiliates and Alliance partners, the ANC, SACP and SANCO, will hold a prayer session given the onslaught of gender-based violence and femicide in the country. The action will also raise the issue of workplace harassment sharply.
COSATU calls on workers to participate in the 7 October activities across the country to make their voices held.
Issued by COSATU
Zanele Sabela (COSATU Spokesperson)
Mobile: 079 287 5788 / 077 600 6639
Email: zaneles@cosatu.org.za