The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has welcomed, as a turning point, Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana’s about-face on the security guard strike, in which he lambasted the ”arrogance” of security employers and said their agreement with 14 minority unions was ”not worth the paper it was written on”.
It was unclear on Wednesday whether Mdladlana’s intervention had broken the strike deadlock. In the immediate wake of his comments, the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration announced that a meeting between security employers’ representatives and Cosatu’s South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) would take place on Friday. However, spokesperson for the South African National Security Employers Association Steve Friswell denied that employers would attend the meeting.
Cosatu’s reaction flowed from an all-day central executive committee (CEC) meeting on Wednesday, at which the federation’s affiliates threw their unanimous support behind the strike.
The CEC voted to support the strike through secondary actions by affiliates and a mass campaign to pressurise companies into negotiating. ”Only solidarity from the labour movement and the community will break the logjam and force employers back to the negotiating table,” the CEC concluded.
However, concerns were raised that the media focus on strike violence was having a negative impact on public opinion, according to Zwelinzima Vavi, Cosatu’s general secretary. Vavi said that all Cosatu’s affiliates had indicated their support for the strike by members.
The CEC did not see strike-related violence as a reason to consider calling off the strike, said Vavi. ”The employers displayed absolute arrogance and took full opportunity to hide behind the fact that the public was dangerously moving against the strike,” he said.
Vavi traced the strike violence to strikers’ ”ill-discipline”, criminals ”jumping on the bandwagon” and unhelpful police behaviour. He also said the media had a tendency to see the activities of criminals as strike related.
In line with the CEC resolution, Cosatu will stage pickets, demonstrations and marches by affiliates against employers’ associations and companies in the security business.
The CEC voiced a concern that the employers were trying to break Satawu. ”It is obvious that the employers are trying to wreck the union, rather than solve the many problems that the industry faces.”
On Tuesday, Mdladlana said employers should realise that the April 1 agreement signed with 14 unions could not be implemented because it excluded the majority union. He also refused to hold public hearings for a sectoral wage determination, arguing that the climate was not conducive to consensus in the sector.
”I therefore appeal to employers to swallow their pride and return to the negotiating table,” said Mdladlana.
Jackson Simon, Satawu’s national sector coordinator, said: ”We waited for this call because we knew it would be a tipping point.”
Mdladlana’s spokesperson, Mokgadi Pela, said that after the minister’s statement ”more and more voices have been supporting negotiations”.
On Wednesday, the South African Chamber of Business issued a statement calling on the department to help the warring parties resolve the strike.
The CEC reported that Mdladlana’s recent statements directed at employers are the outcome of his discussions with Cosatu and Satawu.
A strike for work
On Thursday, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) announced a national strike to be held on May 18 as part of its ”jobs and poverty campaign”, which will include demonstrations and sectoral strikes. It aims to focus attention on the ”national catastrophe of unemployment and poverty”.
Lunch-hour demonstrations have been scheduled for the manufacturing, public sector, mining, construction and public services unions from May 9 to 16.
Cosatu says economic growth in South Africa has mostly benefited the rich and that the government has not done enough to reach the the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative goal of halving unemployment by 2014. The federation insists that, although 350 000 jobs had been created in the past few years, over 600 000 jobs a year were needed to meet the target.
Cosatu’s demands include bringing a halt to the casualisation and outsourcing of jobs, developing local production rather than importing goods, massive upscaling of the government’s public works programme and moves to halt the strengthening of the rand, which, it said, was costing South Africa tens of thousands of jobs.
It has organised a demonstration outside the United States and European Union embassies and consulates to protest against their role in pushing through tariff reductions and privatisation of services during negotiations at the World Trade Organisation. — Lloyd Gedye