#Nationalshutdown: Saftu calls on working class to ‘mobilise or die’

The SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) has chosen 24 August as a tentative date for a one-day national shutdown in response to an array of issues, including worsening living standards, load shedding and jobs bloodbath.

The federation also lamented austerity programmes that have resulted in government freezing public service wages, not investing in infrastructure or filling posts as well as privatisation and worsening crime as reasons for the national shutdown. 

Briefing the media following its two-day National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting at Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg on Thursday, the federation said the date will, however, not be imposed on their members or other allied formations.

General secretary Zwelinzima Vavi called on all people facing evictions in farms, township backyard dwellers constituting the 15% housing backlog, working class formations and all progressive formations that are pro-worker and pro-poor to “mobilise or die”

“We call on all left-leaning political parties to adopt a mobilisation plan, one that will not be a once-off event but a process to reclaim power in our workplaces, communities and other theatres of struggle,” he said.

Vavi said they have agreed to convene a working class summit for the participation of all left-leaning political parties to adopt a mobilisation plan, one that will not be a once-off event but a process to reclaim power in our communities.

“We want to work with every working class formation and every NGO, by the time we reach the working class summit, on the first week of August, we must have everybody in the tent,” he said.

The federation has charged that the rising costs of living was rendering the minimum wage inadequate, with the costs of household food basket at R4,688.

This excludes the costs of other household and personal hygiene, electricity, transport, and other social services in the context of the declining quality of public services

Saftu reiterated its demand for a basic income grant of R1,500 that is R150 above the upper-bound poverty line.

The federation believes the basic income grant will, in turn, have positive multiplier effects in the economy by boosting demand and production, whilst relieving poverty among the unemployed.

Flowing from this were robust and constructive discussions on how the federation should avoid going back to the bickering and inward looking posture that left Saftu paralysed for four years.

The federation said it is taking the battle not only to demand the immediate resignation of Eskom CEO, Andre de Ruyter and the Board, but also that the entire government of the ANC to step aside.