For workers out on strike in the chemical and fuel industry it’s a matter of improving their current hand-to-mouth existence. They say they desperately need the extra cash their union, the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers’ Union is asking for.
“Imagine if I had kids, how would I be able to support them with this meagre salary of R4 500?” asked Thabo Senyatsi, a filler at Air Liquide in Alrode, Alberton, southeast of Johannesburg.
“Retrenchments are always racial and are never across the board,” he said.
The 32-year old has been with the gas company for more than six years and struggles to make ends meet.
Senyatsi said he decided to commute to work every day instead of renting a room near Alrode, so that he could spend more time with his wife at their home in Tsakane in Springs.
But after buying groceries and other supplies for about R800, all his remaining money goes on transport. Senyatsi doesn’t qualify for an RDP house because of his salary – yet he cannot afford to buy a home.
He is one of many workers with the passion and drive to better themselves, but who feel sidelined. He said a white person in his company has a better chance of moving up than a black person.
“Many black people work as fillers and are paid peanuts while the separation plant department is filled with white, coloured and Indian people and the job requires no qualification but experience.”
Senyatsi said that despite workers being exposed to harmful gases such as ammonia, carbon monoxide and nitric oxide, many of them don’t qualify for medical aid.
Those who do are the ones who work longer hours; he sometimes joins them at weekends but doesn’t want to make that a habit.
He believes the strike will improve his life and is fully behind it.
“There is no point in working and seeing no progress in your life while my employers are driving expensive cars, living in beautiful homes, with the business getting bigger and having more clients,” he said.
“I don’t even care if I’m retrenched as long as my fellow workers are able to live a better life.”
Twenty-eight-year-old Sibusiso Ndebele, who lives in Katlehong and has worked at the Multi Construction Chemical in Alrode, put it another way.
“Bayahlanya laba [They are crazy],” Ndebele said.
“They say they can’t afford to meet our demands but the production has been growing. Employers can retrench staff as long as 13% can be reached.”
He said government is operating with double standards: “The government says we should demand a living wage but they are the ones who are escorting the petrol trucks and restricting our protest.”
Meanwhile, 59-year-old Delson Nobovu, the family breadwinner, leans on his walking stick while talking to me at a small gathering of protesters. He said he’s afraid of being retrenched for participating in the strike.
“Eish! I don’t know what I will do. No company will employ an old man like me,” Nobovu said. He spent years looking for a job after being retrenched at the mines. He now sends what he can afford from his measly salary to his family in the Eastern Cape.
He insists that even if managers take a salary cut he isn’t willing to sacrifice he few “black pennies” he earns.
Strike fever has once again hit South Africa with fuel employees, metal and chemical workers among others promising to cripple the country’s economy if their demands are not met. For more news click here.
