Demonstrators plan to hand a memorandum to President Cyril Ramaphosa. (Photographer: Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg)
Scores of members of Cosatu, Saftu and their affiliates gathered in Burger’s Park, Pretoria, on Wednesday as part of a planned “national shutdown” and were set to march to the Union Buildings in protest against the cost of living crisis and frequent power blackouts.
Both trade union federations had called on citizens to stay at home or join the protests.
Dressed in union and traditional attire, protestors sang and chanted: “Ramaphosa, usilawula kanjani simanxeba sinje? Usilawula kanjani?” (Ramaphosa, how do you control us as wounded as we are? How do you control us?)
They brandished placards saying: “Stop putting profits before the people!”
“Cosatu demands a living wage now!”
“End casualisation and labour breaking all sectors.”
“We demand justice for all GBV and femicide victims.”
“Workers are tired of paying for mess at Eskom!”
The spokesperson for the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu), a Cosatu affiliate, said workers had been quiet for too long about the rising cost of living and its effect on all citizens, not only the poor.
“As young people of this country, we are feeling the pinch. A student nurse doing her internship receives a monthly salary of R6 000. With this salary he or she needs to pay rent, buy food and get to work using either public transport or their own car. The high fuel price and increased public transport costs makes it difficult for them to live off just R6 000,” said Amanda Tshemese.
The government had failed to provide the basic needs to live, added Tshemese. There was a trend of “more month than money” from payday to payday.
“It cannot be that we go to a shop and find that a two litre of cooking oil costs more than R150. Where are we going as a country? This is not the South Africa that we want. It is not what we voted for when we voted for the African National Congress. We are pleading with the SA government to do right by its citizens,” said Tshemese.
The protesters are hoping to hand over a memorandum to President Cyril Ramophosa at the Union Buildings.
Among the marchers were former workers from the Burgers Park Hotel who were retrenched after the facility closed its doors.
Goodwin Hamnca was retrenched on 20 May. He told Mail & Guardian that the march was an opportunity for the former staff to express their frustrations with the company over the retrenchments. Hamnca alleged that the hotel’s employees had not received payouts, although they were promised them.
“We were all retrenched and given letters which stated that we would receive severance packages which included leave, days we worked and all the outstanding amounts that they were owing us, even the bonuses that we didn’t get for last year.
“Until today, 24 August, we have not received our severance packages. We tried to consult management. They are not answering our calls. We sent them messages, we sent them emails, they are not responding. We took the case to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration and still no response,” said Hamnca, who said he was a night auditor at the hotel.
The privately-owned hotel still had two franchises operating in Johannesburg, he said.
“It has been so difficult. It is so difficult when you know that every month, you have to bring something to the family and suddenly you are sitting idle, bringing nothing. And then the kids are looking at you [and asking]: ‘Daddy, when are you going back to work?’
It’s really hard to answer them. Not only are jobs scarce but no money was received for the work done,” said Hamnca.