MBOMBELA- Workers around the province will celebrate Workers Day in two events , one in Acornhoek Stadium in the Bushbuckridge Local Municipality and Themba Senamela Stadium in the Steve Tshwete Municipality to avoid members travelling over long distances.
Both events will be highly attended by the leadership of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) together with national and provincial leaders.
The speaker of the National Assembly Baleka Mbete, SACP’s Thulasi Ncesi, Cosatu’s Zingisa Losi and SANCO’s national chairperson DS Mkhwanazi are all expected to be part of workers celebrations in Mpumalanga.
The celebrations will be held under the theme “Celebrating 30 years and defending collective bargaining, workers jobs and rights”.
According to Fidel Mlombo, Cosatu will use this May Day celebrations in the province to radicalise its efforts and struggle to defend and advance the unity and cohesion of the revolutionary alliance in the province and the following :
>To strive for the overwhelming victory of the African National Congress in the 2016 Local Government elections. To defend the right of all vulnerable workers i.e. farm workers, domestic and security workers.
>To strive for the total ban of labour brokers.
>To strive for the scraping of toll – gates and for implementation of the integrated Public Transport System.
>To strive for the introduction of the Comprehensive Social Security.
>To strive for the Implementation of the National Health Insurance (NHI) and
>To struggle for the introduction of the National Minimum Wage.
Research states that the history of Workers’ Day goes back to the 1886 Haymarket Affair in Chicago, where police tried to disperse a large crowd of striking workers (they were protesting for a shorter work day of eight hours). A bomb was thrown at the policemen by an unidentified assailant, and law officers then proceeded to fire live ammunition at a defenceless crowd of unarmed strikers.
Though, it wasn’t until 1891, after successful annual demonstrations on May 1 around the globe, that Workers’ Day was formally inducted into the official calendars of many countries.
Since then, Workers’ Day has been used by the working class across the world, South Africa included, to emphasise the need to establish fair labour practices and employment standards. In South Africa , the Communist Party, trade and labour unions were heavily entrenched in the fight against Apartheid.
