Aug-Sept 2014 K.indd

6

AUG/SEPT 2014 • www.cosatu.org.za

Letters to the Editor

WELL DONE COSATU

Well done and may god bless you and everybody involved in putting an end to the murder of the innocent civilians, woman and children of Palestine. I wish I could help from my side but what can a single person do in such a war? Keep fi ghting for human rights, and continue your good work.

WELL DONE! I fi rmly believe that God will be pleased with you and reward you for your support of the Helpless Palestinian people.

Dear Editor

Cosatu and the ANC have the utmost respect from me and millions of people for the anti apartheid statement made and support for the Palestinian people.

Ismail Buckus

hours for a pittance. Our nurses, teachers and police are not being fairly paid for the valuable services they provide. The majority of these workers, together with workers in the clothing factories, the foundries, and countless plants around the country work long hours and face dangerous conditions for poverty wages. Over half of South Africa’s workers work for less than R3000 a month! They are demanding an end to starvation wages that in the main affects the black working class. They are demanding that the unions should spare no efforts to fi ght against these poverty wages and near slavery working conditions in most of the sectors of the economy. They are telling us that they have had enough of the unful fi lled promise to implement the Freedom Charter. We have places like china mall, market and all of those. My question is whom do they employed? Are those people registered? How are the labour department and COSATU involved? When coming to retail stores (e.g Edcon, Shoprite, etc), one of the strategies they use is employing people who work on hourly shifts but are classi fi ed as part time

permanent staff for 5-20 years. Workers in these retail stores stay in the same condition without any bene fi ts or incentives, they work for those number of years and then their contracts are terminated just like that. Retail stores use a system of rotating the staff shifts so that they do not exceed stipulated hours on LRA, yet we have Cosatu union members who work there. Concerning the issue of strikes, there are many contributing factors that lead to them but the main one is the intimidation and exploitation of workers. The poor South African people have been waiting for a change but nothing is happening. When you take a stand for your rights as a worker, its either you will be dismissed or threatened to discourage you from saying a word to anyone. Rules apply to certain workers but not to all, acts such as e.g PFMA, etc. The LRA Act seems to apply to the grass roots level only, why is it like that? We talk about acquiring skills and quali fi cations, and we go to school to study but to no avail. Success depends on who you are or whom you know. The other thing that is causing problems is the mismatch of skills placements (i.e right skills being

MY CONCERNS There are a few questions I would like to ask, some you may correct me or give clarity if I’m wrong. COSATU`s 11th National Congress - the Workers` Parliament - has declared: We are not prepared to tolerate massive levels of unemployment! We want labour brokers banned now! We will not accept widespread poverty! We cannot live with grotesque levels of inequality that have made us the most unequal society on the planet! Workers whether in far fl ung rural areas, or urban slums, say that they are no longer prepared to tolerate poverty wages. Mineworkers, who produce our wealth in the belly of the earth, are earning a tiny fraction of the surplus they produce. Farm workers who produce our food work under near slave conditions. Retail and commercial workers, many casualised women without basic bene fi ts barely make enough to pay for their transport. Security workers who protect us, and transport workers who take us to work, work unbelievably long

Editor’s Note