A VIEW OF THE WEEK: What are we celebrating? A Workers’ Day with no work?

There is nothing more frightening than facing your first wave.

The joys of the beach disappear quickly as a mighty wall of water hurls towards you. It seems to bring with it guaranteed doom.

Most of the time, you brace for impact, let it crash over you, and pick yourself up. If you are brave and the circumstances are right, you dive under it and come out the other side with minimal fuss.

As we prepare for the arrival of May next week, we may have been forgiven for feeling like we are in those final few seconds of pull before the wave comes.

Getting poorer

On the same day that we commemorate Workers’ Day and the rights of the labourer, a Value-Added Tax (VAT) increase would have kicked in. The National Treasury reversed it just days before it was set to be implemented. But amid the relief was the warning that revenue will now fall short by around R75 billion over the medium term.

Like passing under the swell, it may seem like an immediate crisis averted, but this shortfall will likely lead to fewer jobs, hampered service delivery, and more hikes down the road.

The cost-of-living wave is growing and is one of the government’s own making. Years of neglect and corruption have led to a culture of wasteful expenditure. A recent report of R91 000 laptops being procured by the Mpumalanga education department reminds us of this.

When we ask why any government official needs such an expensive laptop when a much cheaper alternative will do, we must also ask why the Cabinet has so many ministers and deputy ministers. We must also ask why lawmakers continue to get “cost-of-living” salary increases while those they serve lose their jobs or pay more to be counted among the working class.

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Economic slavery and no work

Workers’ Day, celebrated next Thursday, is meant to celebrate the achievements of workers in ending exploitation, but all we see in SA is further economic slavery and a labour crisis.

Nearly two in every five eligible South Africans do not have a job or are discouraged from seeking work.

This number jumps to almost three in five young people when you look at those between 15 and 24 years old who are actively seeking work but unable to find it.

This is made even more concerning when programmes like the Presidential Youth Employment Initiative (PYEI) seem to have been a total failure.

A report by the education department this week revealed the findings of a recent survey on life after the initiative.

It found that while the programme was supposed to create meaningful opportunities for future work, most who finished it were still sitting at home and collecting social grants. Less than 1% went on to get any assistance for future studies.

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So what is there to celebrate?

Is Workers’ Day just a public holiday to sleep in and avoid the daily taxi wars, while those filled with their own grandeur reflect on past victories?

Through shrewd politicking, the ANC has made its Tripartite Alliance labour partner, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), almost completely irrelevant.

It has undermined it, cut off its power instead of amplifying it, and milked it for all it can, much like the exploitation the union was created to avoid.

It has enriched only a few, to blind them to the coup. And it is only now that their feeding trough has shrunk that they suddenly care.

The wave is coming, and South Africa will survive, even if flustered. But not with much help from those who were meant to help it stay afloat.

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