LABOUR federation COSATU has urged millions of South Africans to join a nationwide strike on August 24 to protest against the rising cost of fuel and food and continuing power cuts.
The labour federation said on Thursday that the strike was meant to put pressure on both government and the private sector to fix the economy.
The planned work stoppage will also represent “a response by the workers to the ongoing class warfare directed at them by both public and private sector employers.”
The federation said that it believes private companies are engaging in an ‘investment strike’ and are taking money out of the country.
It further said that looking at data from a few years ago it is evident that companies are investing less, so the nationwide strike is also directed at the private sector.
“Workers across all sectors of South Africa economy are urged to join Cosatu national strike next week on Wednesday,” said the trade union federation’s general-secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali.
Ntshalintshali said that workers bore the brunt of the government’s failures in sustaining the state of the economy.
“We are calling people to join one centralised action, and we are asking them to join others and not go to work next week,” said Ntshalintshali.
“We have details in terms of different provinces and programmes.”
The federation’s president Zingiswa Losi said the strike is not a Cosatu sectoral strike but a section 77 strike.
“This is not a Cosatu sectoral strike, this is a section 77 on socio-economic issues which are not generally about workers only, but it’s about the standard of living of people of South Africa,” said Losi.
“That is why we are calling on South Africans to join the strike beyond workers because the issues that we are raising are not just issues that are affecting workers but also the unemployed.”
The National Union of Mineworkers said in tweet in it will support the strike action and urged workers to join the march.
“Workers across all sectors of SA economy urged to join Cosatu strike on Wednesday. The intention is to demand urgent action from policy makers and decision makers to take drastic steps to avoid economic collapse threatening lives of millions of workers and the poor,” NUM said.
The strike aims to address:
The fuel price cap – four years ago Cosatu proposed introducing a fuel price cap. At the time, the government promised to research the proposal and publish a report – nothing has been delivered since. Cosatu wants the report published.
RAF vs RABS – Cosatu said that a huge chunk of the fuel price goes to servicing the R300 billion debt at the Road Accident Fund. The Road Accident Benefit Scheme was introduced as an alternative, but the bills went nowhere. The union wants the bills to be re-tabled.
Load shedding – The union put forward the ‘Eskom Social Compact’ to address load shedding and power concerns, but little has been done in terms of the execution of the policies raised.
Price gouging by retailers – Cosatu said that over the last two years evidence emerged that there was price gouging in the pharmaceutical and retail sector. The union believes that retailers are now using inflation as an excuse to gouge prices further.
Xenophobia – finally, Cosatu said that the strike would get South Africans together to focus on directing their frustration at the right target – the government and policymakers – rather than each other and foreigners in the country.
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