Why unions’ ‘national shutdown’ turned out to be national letdown

Glaring tensions and divisions within the country’s union federations, a lack of support from the taxi industry, as well as the threat of the loss of a day’s wages amid the tough economic climate all probably contributed to Wednesday’s national shutdown turning out a damp squib.

The strike organised by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) coincided with Statistics SA revealing that the annual consumer price inflation increased from 7, 4% in June 2022 to 7, 8% in July 2022, and consumer price index increased by 1, 5% month-on-month in July 2022.

The main contributors to the 7, 8% inflation rate were food and non-alcoholic beverages, housing and utilities, transport, and miscellaneous goods and services. The cost of food and non-alcoholic beverages increased by 9,7% year-on-year, and contributed 1, 7 percentage points to the total Consumer Price Index (CPI) annual rate of 7, 8%.

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Housing and utilities increased by 4, 0% year-on-year, and contributed 1, 0 percentage point while transport increased by 25,0% year-on-year, and contributed 3,4 percentage points.

Times too tough to strike

Political analyst Solly Masilela said with the tough economic environment, accompanied by the ever-increasing cost of living, very few people would have heeded the call to stay away from work and sacrifice a days’ wages.

He said union membership has decreased drastically over the past years, as workers were dissatisfied with internal divisions and union leaders living in luxury while they struggled on the ground.

“The major set-back for the shutdown was government’s no-work-no-pay stance, which was likely to be adopted by the private sector.  Workers are barely surviving on their meagre salaries, and [unions] tell them to be away from work for a day,” Masilela said.

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He said the shutdown would have made more of an impact had the taxi industry joined in, as this would have also affected other modes of transport as has been the case before.

SA National Taxi Council (Santaco), however, said it was not invited to take part in the strike and had no idea how it was organised.

Masilela said there was also no unity amongst workers due to squabbles in Saftu, one of the two major organisers of the shutdown, and that the federations needed to iron out differences for any impactful action.

Government got the message

In Pretoria, Saftu and Cosatu marched to the Union Buildings separately after Saftu members were called into the Burgers Park meeting point to be addressed, leaving out Cosatu.

But Levy Ndou, a politics and public policy lecturer at the Tshwane University of Technology said though there were no disruptions, it was important for the workers to get their message of frustration through to government.

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He said it was hard to judge the impact of the strike but at political level, it was enough to send a message that if united, workers could achieve the seemingly impossible.

“Organisers will consider it as a success because as provinces had marches and memorandums delivered. The focus should be on the end-goal and not the numbers. What is really important is that government has been formally informed of the frustrations with the unbearable economic situation,” he said.

The Department of Public Service and Administration issued a circular ahead of the strike ordering departments to compile a list of public servants who did not report for duty.

Spokesperson Moses Mushi said the lists will be consolidated for a final tally of how many government employees took part in the strike.

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