Jobs and Poverty Campaign 21 - 04 - 06

 

Jobs and Poverty Campaign

The Congress of South African Trade Unions wishes to clarify the position around its Jobs and Poverty Campaign, which is to resume in May, with the actions set out below.

Since these activities and dates were announced, COSATU has been confronted with a new threat to jobs, in the form of the proposed WTO agreements on non-agricultural market access and services, which, unless severely amended, will lead to catastrophic job losses in South Africa and the poorest, Southern, half of the world. We have launched an international campaign, with our comrades within the global trade union movement, to try to get the agreements amended.

While this issue obviously has a bearing on the Jobs and Poverty Campaign, it is not the sole or main issue around which workers will be taking action in May, as some media reports suggest.

The main issues on which unions are engaging in battle in the Jobs and poverty Campaign include:

a) Transnet restructuring (privatisation, outsourcing etc)

b) Local government and SAMWU disputes (organisational rights and privatisation)

c) Woolworth's and SACCAWU dispute (wages and working conditions)

d) Farm workers and FAWU disputes (rights and compliance issues)

e) Auto/Motor Industry and NUMSA disputes (pending retrenchments at Ford, etc)

We have already held demonstrations at companies blacklisted by COSATU locals because of their bad record of retrenchments, casualisation and racism. We have also been holding sector summits to plan for the May sectoral strikes and marches, which will take place on the following dates:

• * Manufacturing - 09 May
• * Public Sector - 11 May
• * Mining - 16 May
• * Services - 18 May

Further details will be made available to the media in due course.