The government vowed on Wednesday to press ahead with the privatisation of state-owned enterprises, as Cosatu’s two day national strike drew to a close with threats of further action by the labour federation.
Public Enterprises Minister Jeff Radebe, one of six cabinet members who addressed a media briefing in Pretoria, said privatisation would be speeded up.
”There is no question about the political commitment of the African National Congress government proceeding with this programme.”
Speaking at the same briefing, government representative Joel Netshitenzhe dismissed the stayaway as a failure and claimed that the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) was experiencing a ”crisis of leadership”.
He said attendance at work by national and provincial public servants was around 98% and 99% respectively during the countrywide strike on Tuesday and Wednesday led by the Congress of SA Trade Unions.
The stay-away figure at state-owned enterprises was no more than six percent, Netshitenzhe said at a news conference in Pretoria.
He said it was clear that most South Africans refused to be mobilised into what he labelled debilitating action against the government they elected themselves.
The South African Chamber of Business (Sacob) said around 15% of workers across all sectors heeded Cosatu’s strike call.
Sacob representative Carol O’Brien said in a statement: ”Workers do not easily down tools to support stayaways. This can be attributed to innovative production bonuses, conditions in service level agreements and other incentives that are of value to workers.”
Cosatu, however, again disputed the assessments of the strike made by government and business claiming that up to three million workers — up to 60% of the workers in the formal sector — had taken part in the stayaway.
The president of the 1,7-million-strong federation, Willy Madisha, said Cosatu and its affiliates would continue with various forms of mass action until the government placed a moratorium on privatisation and moved to meet labour’s other demands.
”We will go to the streets until it listens. We don’t care how long it takes,” he told protesters in Pretoria. ”We will march until our shoes are finished. It is a sacrifice we are willing to make.”
Madisha said Cosatu was giving the government until the end of the month to put a stop to privatisation.
”At the end of the month, the Cosatu central executive committee will meet and assess if the government has halted the restructuring of state assets. If we find it has not responded appropriately, we will take action,” he said.
Madisha did not rule out the possibility of the federation holding more strikes before the end of the year.
More than 1 000 members of Cosatu-affiliated unions gathered outside Metrorail’s Pretoria offices on Wednesday to protest the privatisation of transport services.
Cosatu and SA Clothing and Textile Workers Union (Sactwu) leaders also addressed around 1 500 workers at a rally at the Good Hope Centre in Cape Town.
However, the second day of the stayaway was characterised by fewer public protests than Tuesday.
Cosatu’s Deputy General Secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali told a media briefing in Johannesburg that the federation’s leadership was happy with participation in the strike and accused government and business of being ”in denial about the extent of the strike”.
Among the successes claimed by Cosatu on Wednesday were the effective closure of several motor plants and the curtailment of operations at Durban Harbour’s container terminal.
Cosatu said Durban’s harbour had been heavily affected by the strike.
Toyota’s plant in Durban, Daimler-Chrysler in East London and Nissan in Pretoria all suspended operations due to the strike. The strike also limited production at Volkswagen, BMW and Delta.
In some cases, large numbers of workers reported for work at the motor plants, but stayaways at other companies in the supply chain prevented the car makers from resuming optimum production.
Sactwu claimed about 41% of employees at clothing and textile factories in the Western Cape stayed away from work on Wednesday. – Sapa