Major South African trade unions have vowed to go on strike next week in protest against massive job losses in various sectors of the country’s economy.
The strike threat comes in the week that Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) announced the worsening level of unemployment in the country.
The latest round of Stats SA’s Labour Force Survey shows the country’s unemployment rate for March this year stood at 31,2%, up from 30,5% in September and 29,4% in March last year.
“This [the unemployment situation] is clearly a national emergency, which need to be addressed urgently,” said Patrick Graven, spokesperson for the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), on Thursday.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) this week said they would embark on an industrial action to protest against the continued job losses in the mining and telecommunication industries.
Already, about 3 000 workers belonging to the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (Numsa) downed tools this week in protest against giant motor company Delta’s leave policy that, the union says, has led to the dismissal of 25 workers and disciplinary measures taken against 400 employees.
Numsa says the Delta policy transgresses the Basic Condition of Employment Act. However, Delta argues that excessive sick-leave absences severely impact on the company’s ability to achieve its production targets and to meet customers’ needs.
“In recent months sick absence has reached unacceptable levels as a result of a minority of employees who continuously abuse the entitlement to paid sick leave,” the company said in a statement this week.
On Thursday Num strike on Sunday night against DRD’s intention to shed about 3 000 jobs at its Haartebeesfontein looked certain.
Following its 60-day review, which started on July 21 and ended last Sunday, DRD this week announced its decision to shut eight shafts and a high-grade plant, which would lead to 4 504 jobs — half its workforce — being lost at its North West operations.
However, these retrenchment figure (of 4 504) was reduced to 2 954 000 after the company and the union signed an agreement on Tuesday this week to save 1 550 works at the Buffelsfontein operation.
Deon van der Mescht, DRD divisional director, said the company would consider requests for voluntary retrenchments.
He said the company would adopt, with due consideration of the need to retain skills, the last-in-first-out mechanism to select those employees whose services were no longer required.
Despite Tuesday’s agreement not to shut the Buffelsfontein operation, the NUM insisted this week that the strike would continue on Sunday night over DRD’s Haartebeesfontein retrenchments.
“We believe that DRD has its knives out for Haartebeesfontein. On our part we believe it would serve them well to reconsider this treacherous approach, said Num spokesperson Moferefere Lekorotsoana.
Van der Mescht said the strike action by the NUM would simply make a bad situation worse, hampering agreed rescue plans for the rest of the North West operations.
He said the future of the remaining components, which would be subject to weekly reviews from October 6, hinges on the successful implementation of the rescue plans.
“Rescue plans for these components are all based on set, achievable production and cost criteria. Progress towards attaining these will be measured on a weekly basis,” he said.
Meanwhile, on Monday about 15 000 members of the CWU will stage a march at Telkom’s headquarters in Pretoria against the fixed-line telephone monopoly’s intention to retrench 1 235 workers by the end of this year.
The retrenchments forms part of the company’s new five-year restructuring plan. This is in addition to the company’s 1999 restructuring initiative, which resulted in more than 20 000 jobs being lost.
The current restructuring plan, according to CWU, will result in more than 7 000 workers losing their jobs by the end of 2007.
Seleboho Kiti, CWU’s general secretary told the Mail & Guardian this week the company had already obtained a Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) certificate to protest against Telkom.
Kiti has criticised Telkom’s restructuring plans, saying it undermined the efforts made during the Growth and Development Summit earlier this year, to create more jobs in the country.
“As part of the state’s parastatal, Telkom should be leading how jobs should be retained. It must have the responsibility not to bring unemployment in the country,” said Kiti.
Kiti said Telkom’s response, after Monday’s march, to the union’s grievances would be a determining factor whether to take the protests further.
Telkom spokesperson Andrew Weldrick, who confirmed to the M&G the company’s retrenchment figures, said: “The telecommunication industry has become more competitive and jobs will need to change with that.”
However, Wilken said the strike was not going to be an answer to the problems, but rather detrimental to the benefit of union members or the company.
Cosatu has also thrown its weight behind the intended strike actions, attributing the increasing level of unemployment in the country to the government’s macroeconmic policies and the strong rand.
“We can’t sit back and watch the jobs disappear like this. Government has to abandon its plans to privatise basic services as it is proving to have a grave effect on employment,” Graven said.
Graven said the policies agreed upon at the Growth and Development Summit had to be implemented with urgency to create more jobs.