The labour movement, set to mark Workers’ Day on May 1, is still relevant and has a role to play in dismantling SA’s entrenched socioeconomic crises, analysts and unionists polled by Business Day said on Wednesday.
Unions have been credited in the past for their influence on development and their role in the passing of government policies.
They have also played a significant role in the drafting and passing of key legislation, such as the national minimum wage, the “two-pot” retirement system and the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, among others.
Unions have recently come together to criticise the National Treasury’s decision to opt for a half a percentage point VAT increase in each of the next two years, arguing that it would push up the cost of living for the working class.
DA MP and labour analyst Michael Bagraim said organised labour was “more relevant today than it has been for the past 30 years”.
The biggest issue facing labour was the country’s unemployment scourge, he said. “We all need to hold hands together to foster an environment that starts to create jobs. Cosatu and its allies in Nedlac [National Economic Development and Labour Council] have a vital role to play in proposed changes to the labour legislation,” Bagraim said.
“Labour has now acknowledged they have a role to play in job creation. They realise they need more members, and they will get more members if we get more people into jobs.
“All trade unions are playing a catalytic role in getting their membership numbers up. So, we have a very important May Day coming up.”
Cosatu spokesperson Zanele Sabela also spoke of the importance of unions. “Unions are still very relevant, particularly as our country has a staggering unemployment of 41.9% and a growth rate of 1%. The two-pot system, which Cosatu first proposed in 2020, has put in excess of R43bn in more than 2.4-million workers’ hands,” said Sabela.
“Cosatu has waged a battle against government’s austerity measures and we are starting to see results with the announcement by [health] minister Aaron Motsoaledi of 1,650 healthcare posts and R3bn for equipment.”
Sabela said funds had been allocated in the budget to hire 4,000 police officers, and that Cosatu’s influence has not suffered post the May 2024 polls.
“The Bela [Basic Education Laws Amendment] Act, which we lobbied hard for, was signed post our ally’s electoral decline, and so was the Expropriation Act. We have pushed for the number of items in the VAT exempt basket to be increased and this has been done,” she said.
“Through Cosatu’s intervention, the severance of 67,000 participants aged 55 and above from the Community Works Programme was halted. We supported the Sars [SA Revenue Service] commissioner’s request for R3bn to raise the tax compliance rate. We are happy to say Sars has been allocated R7.5bn in the medium-term expenditure framework.”
Nelson Mandela University political analyst Prof Ntsikelelo Breakfast said the working class appreciates the nexus between the workplace and the material conditions of the societies they lived in.
“Before workers are workers, they are members of the community. Community struggles can’t be divorced from workplace struggles. The peanuts that workers are getting paid reproduce inequality we have in society, which is between the haves and have nots,” Breakfast said.
“Of course the labour movement is still relevant. Their role remains to fight against injustice, exploitation and casualisation of workers. Employees work long hours, earning peanuts, while exorbitant profits go to a minority few at the top.”
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