Retrenchments, price hikes top Cosatu marchers’ list

Hundreds of members of union federation Cosatu marched to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in Sandton yesterday as part of its national day of action for World Day for Decent Work, to hand over a memorandum of demands.

The demands included an urgent solution to the cost-of-living crisis.

Other demands were that the government and employers place a moratorium on retrenchments; that the department of employment and labour urgently make the temporary employment relief scheme less bureaucratic and more responsive to assisting workers and companies in distress and that more retrenchments were prevented.

Cosatu worker’s demands

A group of workers, who asked to remain anonymous, said they wanted workers to get better pay and benefits.

One said: “I recently had to undergo an operation. I have a medical benefit but had to pay before they would operate on me.

“Why am I paying every month when I can’t use it when I need it?

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“Where do I get that money? I have to borrow and make more debt.

“Out of a R10 000 salary, R6 000 goes towards debt, R2 000 goes towards groceries and then you are left with what?”

Another worker said living expenses have risen so much she struggles to keep up with school fees for her children.

Worker struggling to keep up with school fees

“Food is so expensive. Now, one egg costs R4.

“And what meat can you buy for R100?” she asked.

Cosatu’s first deputy president Mike Shingange addressed the workers outside the JSE.

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He said he hoped that when Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana delivers the medium-term budget policy statement at the end of the month, it will be a developmental and people-centred budget.

“We want you to ensure that the budget responds to the growing needs of the people of this country.

“The poor population is forever growing in this country and we are now growing a population of the unemployed,” he said.

‘Growing population of the unemployed’

Cosatu spokesperson Zanele Sabela said yesterday’s national march was a once-off thing.

“The aim of the march on World Day for Decent Work was to put workers’ matters on the table and the agenda so that they are also being prioritised.

“Policies are political choices and we need workers’ perspectives to come out clearly so they are taken seriously,” she said.

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Sabela said Cosatu was very unhappy about government’s austerity measures, such as planning to cut the basic education budget.

“We will be standing solidly against this and mobilising society. It’s the type of fight every member of society would want to fight.”

Sabela said they were watching two court cases closely.

Cosatu watching cases closely

One involved the SA Municipal Workers’ Union in the City of Tshwane, whose members still haven’t received pay increases.

“There’s also the case of Cosatu affiliate, the SA Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union, which is presently engaging Pick n Pay on its plans to retrench 12 000 workers.

“And then there is Massmart, which dismissed more than 600 workers during a 14-month long wage strike saying they had violated picketing rules.

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“We are waiting for the court dates on both of those cases.

“This is what we mean by a relentless attack on collective bargaining.

“We can’t have a situation where every wage negotiation ends in court.

‘Every wage negotiation can’t end up in court’

“It clogs up the system and is not what we want,” she said.

Sabela added that Cosatu was not irrelevant now.

“All the rage in September was the two-pot system, which was a proposal made by Cosatu in May 2020 in parliament.

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“Now, five years later, it is coming into being,” she said.