Thousands of workers protested against unemployment and poverty around South Africa on Monday in a nationwide strike that business says was poorly attended and unnecessary.
From Cape Town to Johannesburg to Ulundi, workers marched against retrenchments and the strong rand, which has been cutting the exporter earnings and causing job losses.
”We strike because we are tired. We are retrenched every day by the capitalists. They put profits before us,” Congress of SA Trade Unions president Willie Madisha said to loud applause at a march in Johannesburg.
Madisha attacked the strong rand and demanded that the government find a way to devalue it.
”The rand is too strong and because of its strength we have a problem. This thing of the rand must be looked into. It must be devalued,” he said.
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.
The SA Chamber of Business (Sacob) said only 10% of workers took part in the strike, which cost the South Africa economy an estimated R500-million.
”Judging from the response of a survey on Sacob’s members this morning, the strike does not appear to have been well supported,” said Johan Zietsman, a labour specialist at Sacob.
”We have estimated that about 10% of employed people would participate. This would result in loss of R500-million to the economy.”
Between six and seven million people are employed in South Africa.
Zietsman said despite Cosatu’s intentions, the strike had not done much to ease the unemployment problem.
”I don’t see how this strike solves the unemployment situation in South Africa. Job growth happens by stimulating business conditions. The strike has made the situation even worse,” he said.
But Cosatu said the strike was highly successful.
”The Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban marches are already numbering tens of thousands and there are several hundred (marches) in smaller towns,” the federation said in a statement on Monday afternoon.
”One notable example is the first ever Cosatu march in Ulundi. Other marches are underway in Witbank, Bloemfontein, Rustenburg, Mafikeng…”
Costau said the Volkswagen and Mercedes plants in the Eastern Cape had stopped production because of the strike.
Telkom’s office in the North West province had closed, 80% of Metcash workers had not turned up for work and Highveld Steel in Witbank had closed, Cosatu said.
Garbage had not been collected in many areas.
In Johannesburg Cosatu members brought traffic to a standstill before handing a memorandum containing their concerns over job losses to the Chamber of Mines.
A large group of workers then marched to the Gauteng legislature to hand over another memoranda.
In Cape Town tens of thousands of strikers marched to the gates of Parliament to hand over a memorandum protest against job losses.
They also handed over memoranda in the city centre to retailers’ representatives, demanding that they cut back on imports of cheap clothing from China.
The number of strikers, who marched carrying a forest of banners and a black cardboard coffin saying, ”Bosses get richer/ the boys get poorer”, was estimated by the police at 27 000 but unionists put the figure at twice that.
Cosatu’s Western Cape general secretary Tony Ehrenreich said the turnout was ”symptomatic of people’s deep concern with the effect that government’s policies are having on their lives”.
”There’s 60 000 people who came on the march and there is an overwhelming majority of people that supported the strike call,” he said.
A Cosatu survey had shown 70% support for the stayaway in the Western Cape.
The SA Clothing and Textile Workers Union (Sactwu) said in a statement released at midday that preliminary indications were that about 86% of the 185 000 workers in the clothing, textile and leather industries nationally had supported the stayaway.
Sactwu regional secretary Aziza Kannemeyer said the clothing and textile industries were the biggest employers in Cape Town, and were shedding jobs at the rate of a thousand a month.
Western Cape provincial secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, Karl Cloete told the crowd that this year alone 5 000 workers had been retrenched in the steel and engineering industries. – Sapa