The South African labour market is bracing itself for a major showdown as more than 500 000 members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) gear up for massive protest action against job losses and high levels of unemployment.
Cosatu’s strike, due to start on Monday in a programme that will run into February next year, is South Africa’s biggest action against unemployment in 15 years.
The protest comes a week ahead of the African National Congress’s national general council meeting where the party’s proposals for a rethink on labour-market strategy is expected to be discussed. The ANC is proposing the introduction of a two-tier labour market in an effort to accelerate job creation and economic development.
Statistics show that unemployment in South Africa has almost doubled from 2,4-million in 1994/95 to 4,4-million this year. The official unemployment rate in the first quarter of 2005 stood at 26,2% of the economically active population.
Although the figures show a slight decline compared with the previous two years, South Africa has experienced a significant number of job losses in the past few months, partly because of the strong rand.
The hardest hit sectors were mining, which lost 153 000 jobs, and agriculture, which lost 195 000 jobs. The textile industry, according to Cosatu, lost 17 000 jobs in the past year alone.
”South Africa is continually losing jobs from the productive heart of the economy. Sections of mining and manufacturing have destroyed tens of thousands of jobs and we face the prospects of losing thousands more in the near future,” said Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi.
For every worker who loses his or her job, said Vavi, five to 10 people suffer impoverishment and hunger. ”Mass unemployment means our communities are being torn apart by joblessness, poverty and despair.”
Cosatu first tabled its demands, which included strong government measures to end the overvaluation of the rand, in March this year. The union believes the strong rand has led to a flood of imports and undermined the profitability of the mining industry. Despite last month’s tripartite alliance summit resolutions, which included an unprecedented commitment by the ANC to promote the value of the rand, the Reserve Bank has yet to take any steps to weaken the rand.
Last year Cosatu and its affiliates entered into a dispute with employers in the mining, clothing and retail sectors under Section 77 of the Labour Relations Act.
The National Economic Development and Labour Council has declared a deadlock in the negotiations between employers and the federation.
”We have submitted notices to permit workers to embark on protected rolling mass action, including pickets, demonstrations and protest strikes. The first protest strike will be on Monday. The June strike will be followed by monthly protests until February next year. In December action will peak, with a mass rally planned to coincide with Cosatu’s 20th anniversary,” said Vavi.
”We hope that it [the strike] will help ensure a real development strategy that can bring about sustainable growth to benefit the majority,” said Cosatu economist Neva Makgetla.
Vavi said Cosatu’s 21 affiliates, including the South African Democratic Teachers Union, the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union, the South African Municipal Workers Union, the National Union of Mineworkers, and the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), are expected to join the protest action on Monday. Numsa said it would also use the day to protest against the low wage increase in the steel sector after its negotiations with the Steel and Engineering Industry Federation of South Africa (Seifsa) failed to bear fruit this week.
Numsa is demanding a wage increase of 10% for the lowest paid employees and 9% for the highest paid. Seifsa is offering 5,8% for the lowest paid employees and 4,8% for the highest paid workers.
The South African Communist Party, which has proclaimed that the second decade of democracy should belong to workers and the poor, on Thursday threw its weight behind Cosatu’s protest action.