{"id":428840,"date":"2020-08-26T12:45:05","date_gmt":"2020-08-26T10:45:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=428840"},"modified":"2020-08-26T12:45:05","modified_gmt":"2020-08-26T10:45:05","slug":"another-major-strike-planned-for-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/428840\/another-major-strike-planned-for-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Another major strike planned for South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) says it will begin mobilising for major strike action in the first week of October.<\/p>\n<p>The trade federation plans to go on a general strike on 7 October <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/commoditiesNews\/idAFL8N2FS2IM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Reuters<\/a> <\/strong>reports, with the protest focusing on corruption and perceived inaction by the government.<\/p>\n<p>Cosatu&#8217;s general secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali said that the federation\u00a0wants president Cyril Ramaphosa to speed up prosecutions of corrupt individuals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe (Ramaphosa) must stop negotiating with criminals and use the only language that they will understand which is prosecution and sentencing,&#8221; Ntshalintshali said.<\/p>\n<p>Cosatu is the largest trade federation in the country with an estimated membership of 1.8 million workers.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/COSATU?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#COSATU<\/a> CEC declares: All workers and COSATU unions should fight back and go on strikes against employers undermining collective bargaining. We have the freedoms and rights to defend <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TreasuryRSA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@TreasuryRSA<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/deptoflabour?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@deptoflabour<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/UpdateAtNoon?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@UpdateAtNoon<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/JoinCOSATUNow?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#JoinCOSATUNow<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/cYLYhkzkaC\">pic.twitter.com\/cYLYhkzkaC<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 @COSATU Today (@_cosatu) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/_cosatu\/status\/1298561532167630854?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 26, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong>Health workers strike<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has also pledged support to National Education, Health and Allied Workers\u2019 Union (Nehawu) which is also planning industrial action.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday (24 August), the Labour Court <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhls.ac.za\/labour-court-declares-nehawus-planned-strike-action-unlawful\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ruled<\/a> <\/strong>that the strike action at the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) this week is unlawful and in breach of the relevant provisions of the Labour Relations Act.<\/p>\n<p>The union had planned to go on strike on Tuesday, 25 August, over what it has termed as a breakdown in salary negotiations and provisioning of personal protective equipment amongst other issues.<\/p>\n<p>Nehawu\u2019s membership base exceeds 240,000 people, making it the largest public-sector union in the country.<\/p>\n<p>The union has <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/424914\/major-government-strike-planned-for-south-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">committed<\/a> <\/strong>to a \u2018day of mass action\u2019 on\u00a0<strong>3 September<\/strong>, where memorandums will be handed over to senior government officials.<\/p>\n<p>Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla has previously said that union has\u00a0the federation\u2019s blessings and support for its planned mass action next month. \u201cWe want public servants to go on a full-blown strike,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Pamla stated that the government is not acting as though there is a crisis in the country with public servants contracting and succumbing to the deadly coronavirus.<\/p>\n<p>He warned that if the government does not meet Nehawu\u2019s demands by\u00a010 September, the union will completely withdraw its labour.<\/p>\n<p><strong>More to come<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The issue of governmental wage increases is also likely to take centre stage in the coming months as restrictions around the coronavirus pandemic are eased.<\/p>\n<p>Public wages are set through bargaining with unions and agreements stay in force for three years. The current agreement is in place until March 2021.<\/p>\n<p>However, in February government asked to review the last leg of a three-year pay agreement because it said it couldn\u2019t afford it.<\/p>\n<p>The coronavirus pandemic has further exacerbated the country\u2019s financial problems with unions and government now set for a showdown.<\/p>\n<p>National Treasury plans on cutting R160 billion from the public sector wage bill over the next three years &#8211; a position that has been met with <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/377523\/unions-outraged-by-plans-to-pare-back-state-wage-bill\/\">opposition from public sector trade unions<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read:<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/428766\/south-african-covid-19-relief-payouts-halted-amid-investigation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> South African Covid-19 relief payouts halted amid investigation<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) says it will begin mobilising for major strike action in the first week of October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":427494,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-428840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428840"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":428852,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428840\/revisions\/428852"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}