Cosatu marched on World Day for Decent Work over working conditions

With government at loggerheads with public sector unions over salary increases, the prospect of avoiding strikes is a mission impossible, according to analysts.

As people across the globe celebrated World Day for Decent Work, in South Africa, it came at a time when government could not come to salary agreements with trade unions.

Political analyst André Duvenhage said it was not that government did not want to give salary increases, but the “state’s purse” was gone.

“They are broke and there is nothing left. They cannot accommodate [salary increases] because the input side and tax base side of the country have become too small,” he said.

According to Duvenhage, workers in most cases received above-inflation salary increases.

Trading Economics reported that South Africa’s annual inflation rate eased to 7.6% in August from a 13-year high of 7.8% in July, but was still above market expectations of 7.5% and at the upper limit of the South African Reserve Bank’s target range of three to six percent.

Duvenhage said the context was not sustainable, as this was a structural problem in the economy. “For the last number of years, there was no economic growth and expectations were even going down, but the trade unions do not want to accept the reality,” he said.

“They would rather kill the whole economy, in order to benefit. “We are in times where we are expected to cut back. ‘To want a salary increase higher than inflation when the economy is not growing is completely unrealistic.”

Political analyst Ntsikelelo Breakfast said the cost of living had been on the rise, necessitating the working class to embark on mass action.

Breakfast said the history of all societies was the history of class struggles and the history of conflict between the haves and the have-nots.

He said throughout history, there had been that dichotomy and there would never be harmony between the working and ruling classes.

“Those contradictions can be managed, but managing contradictions does not mean they can be eliminated.”

Breakfast said there was a class which pointed to the belief of production and pursued profit at all costs by exploiting others, yet there was also the other one which served its labour power in exchange for income – and if it was not tamed the way it should be, no wonder it fought back by ruining things.

“The issue of having a workplace with no protests or strikes was impossible,” he said. “Inflation has been an economic issue and the ANC is under pressure at the moment to instruct government to allow unions to get what they want.

“Otherwise, we might see a breakaway because they pose a threat if demands are not met.” Meanwhile, members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) took to the streets yesterday to march in Riverside, Mpumalanga, to commemorate World Day for Decent Work.

Weir Street in Riverside and the area around the Mpumalanga provincial government complex was said to have been temporarily closed due to the protest by Cosatu.

According to a press statement from Cosatu, the day was marked to address aspects which impeded workers’ rights, such as conditions of employment, safety and issues related to physical and mental integrity in the workplace.

“The federation will deliver the memorandum of demands to both the MEC for agriculture, rural development, land and environmental affairs [Busisiwe Shiba] and the premier [Refilwe Mtshweni-Tsipane] respectively,” read the statement.

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