JAN HENNOP, Johannesburg | Thursday
SOUTH Africa’s largest trade union federation Cosatu on Wednesday claimed the first day of a two-day general strike a success, but bosses said the impact of the action was limited.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said some 65% of the workforce around 5,5-million workers heeded the call to down tools in protest against the government’s privatisation policies.
“We expect even better participation tomorrow, when marches will be held in major metropolitan centres,” Cosatu representative Patrick Craven said.
“Most industrial areas are virtually shut down. At least 65% of workers stayed away to protest against privatisation. This means over 5,5-million workers heeded the strike call,” Craven said in a statement.
But the South African Chamber of Business (Sacob), which represents some 40 000 businesses in the country, estimated the overall number of workers striking at around 30%.
“Our perspective is that what Cosatu had set out to do, they have not achieved,” said Sacob representative Brian Wasmuth.
“The stayaway does not seemed to have harmed the internal economy, but it has done a lot of damage in regards to foreign investor confidence in the country,” he said.
He said that according to a Sacob survey, the strike had not achieved the goals set out by Cosatu because in many cases, businesses had put in place contingency measures to counter the effect of the strike.
Cosatu president Willy Madisha, however, told public SABC radio the federation was “extremely satisfied” with the outcome of the first day.
He claimed a 90% stayaway figure in Eastern Cape, the highest for any province.
This included Port Elizabeth, the hub of South Africa’s car manufacturing industry where companies such as Delta and Volkswagen are situated.
Madisha said services were affected across all industries in South Africa except in commercial stores and supermarkets, where management brought in scab labour.
“That’s exactly where the problem lies,” Madisha said.
He said that should the two-day strike not succeed in turning around the policy of privatisation, Cosatu might look at “extending the action”. He did not elaborate.
Reports from across the country on Wednesday indicated many workers had reported for duty as usual.
This included Durban where a UN conference on racism starts Friday, with little disruption to the flight schedules of thousands of delegates arriving at the eastern port city’s international airport.
Cosatu claims privatisation will damage state-owned assets like electricity supplier Eskom, and the nation’s biggest transport operator, Transnet, by destroying jobs as the companies leave state hands.
“Privatisation has already led to close to 200_000 job losses. Current plans would lead to the loss of tens of thousands of jobs,” Craven said.
The government has defended its policy, saying it is restructuring state assets to be more competitive, but Cosatu secretary-general Zwelinzima 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.” – AFP
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