The Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) is considering going on strike if its talks with the government on the rand’s overvaluation fail, the federation said on Monday.
”We are… considering a dispute on government’s failure to deal with the overvaluation of the rand under Section 77 of the LRA (Labour Relations Act), which permits strike action if the parties deadlock,” said Cosatu spokesman Paul Notyhawa.
In a statement calling on the government to declare a state of emergency regarding the country’s job losses, he said Cosatu was pursuing permission to strike against clothing retailers.
”Under this dispute, we have demanded that retailers do more to stock local clothing in order to maintain the industry and save jobs,” said Notyhawa.
”We are awaiting a response from retailers in the course of next week. If that response leads to a deadlock, we will give notice for mass action.”
He said the federation heard of thousands of looming job losses last week. These included the loss of 6 000 jobs with the liquidation of DRDGold’s North West operations, Harmony Gold wanting to retrench a further 4 900 on top of the 8 000 it cut last year, the Rex Trueform factory was threatened with closure with the loss of 1 000 jobs, and 732 jobs were set to be lost with the coming closure of Prestige Clothing.
”These cuts are just the well-publicised examples. Thousands of other jobs are disappearing without any publicity,” Notyhawa said.
He said that in the clothing and textile sector, 100 000 formal jobs were lost in the past 10 years, 17 000 in the past 12 months alone, and 800 during the first month of this year.
Therefore Cosatu was demanding that strong measures be taken to end the overvaluation of the rand, especially through a reduction in the real interest rate.
Business should also make a more serious effort to avoid job losses.
”Retrenchment and closure should also be the last step taken, since it destroys economic capabilities as well as worsening poverty and inequality,” Notyhawa said.
Retailers should stock local goods, instead of imports. The mines should do more to develop South African industry, rather than focusing on foreign mining opportunities.
Cosatu also called on the government to review its trade strategy to ensure that it stopped destroying jobs. At the World Trade Organisation it had to fight for the right of developing countries to support new industries and protect vulnerable jobs.
”Moreover, it must review engagement with other countries, especially China, to ensure that new measures support employment and do not destroy jobs.”
He said the ”job-loss bloodbath” reflected the failure of business and even the government to make employment a top priority.
”We believe that far more needs to be done by government and business if we are to meet the targets agreed to at the Growth and Development Summit to halve the level of unemployment by 2014. We cannot wait any longer to deal with this crisis,” he said. – Sapa