The rand must be devalued, Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) president Willie Madisha said in Johannesburg on Monday. ”The rand is too strong and because of its strength we have a problem,” Madisha told workers participating in a one-day strike to protest ”catastrophic” unemployment level of 40%.
Since the rand’s recovery from a dramatic downward plunge in 2001, its current relative strength has been blamed repeatedly for job losses, particularly in the export and mining sectors.
”We strike because we are tired. We are retrenched every day by the capitalists. They put profits before us,” Madisha said to loud applause.
He also raised the issue of racism in the workplace.
”We are killed at the workplace, we are not promoted because of racism. All the things which are bad, are directed to us because of our skin colour. That is why racism must come to an end,” Madisha said.
”If it does not, our rolling mass actions will continue until February next year.”
He said the hardest hit workers were in the clothing, textile and steel industries and many more in the mines and hotels.
”They are given R200 a week, the money is used for transport. Enough is enough.”
Madisha spoke after South African Communist Party general secretary Blade Nzimande, who was interrupted by the arrival of his counterpart at Cosatu, Zwelinzima Vavi.
When Vavi arrived he asked the crowd: ”Nikhalelanina na?” (What are you crying about?), and the crowd responded with: ”Imisebenzi” (Work).
Immediately after that Vavi launched into a song ”Oliver Tambo baphela abantu [people are dying]. Bayasi ritrencha [they are retrenching us],” he continued, along with the crowd.
Nzimande said the SACP took part in the strike demanding land for poor people.
”We are supporting this strike because at the SACP we want land for landless people,” he said.
The three led the march, which set-off much later than expected, and brought traffic in downtown Johannesburg to a standstill as it wended its way to Braamfontein.
Some marchers turning towards Hillbrow were ushered back to the main group.
A policeman put the number of people taking part at between 30 000 and 40 000.
Reuters reported the AngloGold Ashanti mining firm as saying most of its workforce had failed to turn up. The mining industry, which is heavily unionised, has been especially hard hit by job losses in recent years.
A Reuters journalist in Johannesburg said there was widespread disruption on the trains and many workers appeared to be giving up and going home.
Cosatu said the one-day strike was the first in a threatened series of actions between now and February intended to put pressure on the government over unemployment and the 22-million people in South Africa living in poverty.
A union spokesman told Reuters: ”We want a completely different mindset from business — saving jobs instead of cutting them for short term commercial gain.”
Strikers gather in Cape Town
Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) strikers in Cape Town have handed over a memorandum to retailers demanding they cut back on cheap clothing imports.
Thousands of workers, many of them from the clothing and textile industries, took to the streets in the city centre on Monday.
Cosatu provincial secretary Tony Ehrenreich said a crowd of 50 000 people had turned up, but the police estimated the total at about 27 000.
The marchers stopped outside Woolworths’ Adderley Street branch, where they handed over memoranda to representatives of Woolworths and Edgars.
South African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (Sactwu) secretary-general Ebrahim Patel told the strikers the Freedom Charter said there should be work and security for all.
”What brings us here today is that we don’t have work and security. What brings us here today is we have a bloodbath in jobs in the South African economy.”
He said retailers were destroying jobs by importing clothing, and the memorandum called on them to increase their local procurement.
In the past year alone, Edgars had recorded a R1,8 billion profit, ”and it’s done that on the back of major job losses in the economy”.
Sactwu said in a statement issued at midday that preliminary indications were that about 86% of workers in the clothing, textile and leather industries nationally had supported the strike.
This meant that about 159 100 out of a total of 185 000 workers employed nationally in the industry had supported the protest. – Sapa, Guardian Unlimited Â