Trade unions have to make sure that this year’s wage demands fully compensate workers for the drop in their real standard of living in the past year, the Congress of South Africans Trade Unions (Cosatu) said in its May Day message on Wednesday.
”The increases that we negotiated last year may have seemed good enough at the time, but they have been more than cancelled out by rising inflation,” said spokesperson Patrick Craven.
He said that if one disregarded government services, including the increase in social grants and pensions, workers were ”in every respect” worse off than a year ago.
”Our families have been battered by a tsunami of price increases. Throughout the world the prices of bread, mealie meal, rice, milk and transport have been rising every month,” he said.
In South Africa, the position was even worse as a result of ”criminal price-fixing”, which had already been proven in the bread and dairy sectors.
”Greedy companies, under cover of the global price rises, are getting together to put up their prices even higher, so they can make even bigger profits at the expense of their consumers.”
Workers were not benefiting.
The most recent interest-rate hike by the South African Reserve Bank would not only add to the burden of the thousands of workers who had to borrow money, but would also put the brakes on economic growth and jeopardise jobs.
”On top of all this we could now face a huge rise in the prices of electricity, petrol and steel, which will push up even further the price of all commodities.”
Cosatu warned employers, particularly those it was negotiating with this year, that they should expect tough wage talks.
”We do not only demand compensation, but to ensure that our wages help to fully address the impact of high inflation, mainly caused by rises in food and transport costs,” Craven said.
Anticipating that the electricity shortage would put jobs at risk, Cosatu said it would not allow workers to pay the price for something not of their own making.
”We are worried about the current rolling blackouts. Employers in the mining industry estimate that we may lose up to 30 000 jobs if the rolling blackouts continue.
”We know that threat cuts across all sectors of the economy,” said Craven.
Cosatu had already begun a campaign of mass action against the soaring prices and the electricity crisis by submitting notices to allow it to organise stayaway protests, he said. — Sapa