JAN HENNOP, Johannesburg | Wednesday
SOUTH Africa has braced itself for a massive national strike called by Cosatu, its largest trade union federation, ahead of a major UN-sponsored conference on racism in Durban.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said it expects up to four million workers to down tools on Wednesday and Thursday in protest at the government’s privatisation policy the most serious industrial action since democratic elections in 1994.
Schools, supermarkets, banks, post offices, garages, buses, the passenger rail service and others are all expected to be slowed down by absent workers.
Metrorail’s train services in the Johannesburg region were on Wednesday marginally disrupted by the stayaway.
Lillian Mofokeng said services at stations to check commuters tickets were the worst affected by the stayaway. She said at most stations in the Johannesburg region, passengers were getting onto trains without having their tickets being checked.
”We hope that the majority of the commuters are monthly or weekly payers,” she said.
”There is no way we can check if they had paid.”
She said about 70% of the metro trains were operating. Cosatu said 19 unions had indicated they will heed the call to strike, including those representing airport workers a move expected to result in widescale disruptions as thousands of delegates begin arriving for Friday’s start of the UN Conference against Racism.
However, Deon Cloete, Durban International Airport manager, said contingency measures were in place.
”We are fully prepared. We have been planning this for weeks to deal with any contingencies,” Cloete said.
The strike will also affect off-duty policemen and prison guards, public transport and hospital workers.
The action represents the most serious fallout yet between the African National Congress (ANC)-led government and Cosatu, its long-standing anti-apartheid ally.
Cosatu’s secretary-general Zwelinzima Vavi said the strike would give effect to the words of former president Nelson Mandela who once said: ”Workers should take on the government if they feel that it is not pursuing their interest to ensure it is brought back in line.”
The union says government’s privatisation programme has resulted in thousands of job losses since 1994, a charge the government has denied.
The South African Communist Party (SACP), the third member of the so-called tripartite alliance that battled brutal political oppression by the former white minority government, has been vocal in support of the strike.
”We are ready. Our own nearly two million members have been joined by many other (non-governmental) organisations, said,” Cosatu representative Patrick Craven.
”The strike is of special importance. I certainly can’t think of anything that has been this big (before),” he added.
The South African Chamber of Business (Sacob) said they were not convinced that the two day strike would achieve anything positive.
A representative from Sacob, Marius Louw, said there was confusion in the money markets about how much the strike would cost the country.
The government has defended its policy, saying it is restructuring state assets to be more competitive, but Vavi has challenged this, saying the policy merely serves to expand the role of the private sector.
”For this reason, our national stayaway demands that no basic services or national infrastructure be privatised, and that in any restructuring the state must (be) open to public input and accountable to our representatives,” Vavi said on Monday.
The fallout has resulted in leaders from both sides trading blows publicly.
President Thabo Mbeki on Sunday accused Cosatu of misleading workers and using them as ”cannon fodder in an offensive aimed at defeating their own liberation movement.”
”To create a false impression … that the government will now effect a moratorium on (selling) state assets is misleading,” Public Enterprises Minister Jeff Radebe said in a debate on public SABC radio with Vavi on Tuesday.
”There have been ongoing talks,” Radebe said, adding that the strike call ”really boggles the mind.”
Vavi said that although Cosatu felt that government had ”gotten carried away”, it believed the ANC was still dedicated to improving the lot of all South Africans.
”Our strike arises because we disagree with their methods for achieving that, not because we doubt their good faith,” he said.
”We need to say to government that it is in their best interest, just as it is in our best interest that we drop these personal attacks,” Vavi said.
SACP general-secretary Blade Nzimande said privatisation should be halted to end the ”job-loss bloodbath in the country.”
With just over a month before the start of the final matric exams, pupils and their parents have reacted angrily to the SA Democratic Teachers Union’s intention to participate in the strike.
According to the Gauteng department of education, the union’s industrial action has led the province to postpone a Grade 12 preparatory accounting examination planned for Thursday. – AFP, Sapa