{"id":617705,"date":"2022-08-17T14:23:42","date_gmt":"2022-08-17T12:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=617705"},"modified":"2022-08-17T14:23:42","modified_gmt":"2022-08-17T12:23:42","slug":"massive-strike-action-to-go-ahead-next-week-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/617705\/massive-strike-action-to-go-ahead-next-week-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Massive strike action to go ahead next week in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) have marked Wednesday, 24 August for a nationwide strike against the rising cost of living in the country.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8Hexlf5V3E0&amp;ab_channel=SABCNews\">SABC<\/a>, Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said that the strike is legally protected, and the unions have received the necessary certificates to proceed.<\/p>\n<p>He said that union members have engaged in protest action all over the country over the past few weeks, but 24 August would see strike action across all nine provinces. He added that all workers will take part,\u00a0 but invited South Africans in general to join.<\/p>\n<p>The unions are specifically looking to voice their anger and frustration over the rising cost of living and a lack of action from the government in addressing the issues being raised daily by the population.<\/p>\n<p>Pamla said that the problems aren&#8217;t new, and many talks have been held, and policies endorsed to address them, but there has been no action from the government in following through.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have solutions &#8211;\u00a0 but at a government level, there&#8217;s a lack of will or a lack of capacity &#8211; that&#8217;s where the problem lies,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The problem is they&#8217;re not being implemented.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He said pressure needs to be placed on the government to take action.<\/p>\n<p>The strike aims to address:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The fuel price cap<\/strong> &#8211; four years ago Cosatu proposed introducing a fuel price cap. At the time, the government promised to research the proposal and publish a report &#8211; nothing has been delivered since. Cosatu wants the report published.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>RAF vs RABS<\/strong> &#8211; 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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Load shedding<\/strong> &#8211; The union put forward the &#8216;Eskom Social Compact&#8217; to address load shedding and power concerns, but little has been done in terms of the execution of the policies raised.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Price gouging by retailers<\/strong> &#8211; 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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Investment strike<\/strong> &#8211; Cosatu said that it believes private companies are engaging in an &#8216;investment strike&#8217; and are taking money out of the country. Pamla 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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Xenophobia<\/strong> &#8211; finally, Cosatu said that the strike would get South Africans together to focus on directing their frustration at the right target &#8211; the government and policymakers &#8211; rather than each other and foreigners in the country.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When asked if Cosatu should not take some of the blame for the state of the country because of its alliance with the governing ANC, Pamla said that the union isn&#8217;t blind to the conflict this presents.<\/p>\n<p>He said that Cosatu engages and agrees with the ANC on many policies, but when it comes to execution, that&#8217;s in the hands of the governing party.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are all aware of the ANC&#8217;s failures in government. As alliance parties, we need to be realistic when it comes to some issues. The ANC is really failing if you look at where we are with issues of unemployment and being the most unequal country in the world. Also when it comes to solving all the problems on the economic front,&#8221; Pamla said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But on the policy front, the ANC has done some commendable things,&#8221; he said, highlighting the National Minimum Wage, progress being made in education, the National Health Insurance scheme, giving workers access to retirement savings and other legislative moves.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So we&#8217;re working with the ANC on a lot of policies that benefit workers &#8211; but we are not mincing our words on the spectacular failures and mismanagement of the economy. This is the price you pay for being in an alliance,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The Cosatu spokesperson said that the ANC faces its most difficult election in 2024, noting that the party has gone from a comfortable majority to not even being certain if it can get a 50+1% mandate to govern.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business-opinion\/616949\/union-plans-massive-strike-action-in-south-africa\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Union plans massive strike action in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) have marked Wednesday, 24 August for a nationwide strike against the rising cost of living in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":438621,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-617705","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\/617705","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=617705"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":617747,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617705\/revisions\/617747"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}