The working class in South Africa is under siege from soaring living costs and rising unemployment, prompting Cosatu to organise a national protest on 19 June. This protest aims to urge the government and private sector to take immediate action to alleviate the burden on workers.
Image: Ayanda Ndamane/ Independent Newspapers
The working class is under siege from the increasingly painful costs of living, rising unemployment and the subsequent crises of poverty, inequality, crime, corruption and overstretched public services.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) will be holding a national protest against the rising costs of living on Friday 19 June to send a clear message to government and the private sector that workers can no longer cope and action must be taken before it is too late.
South Africa’s history of centuries of institutional discrimination and disempowerment under colonial and apartheid rule are well known and the scars of poverty and inequality they engineered remain painfully etched across the nation.
We appreciate that great strides have been made on many fronts since 1994 under government led by the African National Congress, from investing 60% of the Budget into uplifting working-class communities to opening up the economy to the 90% once denied access to their race, gender or disability.
We must, however, be alarmed by the plight facing millions of working-class and increasingly middle-class families with most drowning in debt and borrowing simply to pay for essentials or other debt. Workers support an average of 7 relatives.
With the doubling of fuel prices over the past few months and workers spending an average of 40% of their wages on transport, we fear we are approaching breaking point.
Just as we collectively rallied as a nation to successfully defeat Covid-19, so too must government and business work with labour and society, to tackle our rising costs of living and the dire socio-economic crises underpinning them.
Government has done well to provide some relief for the massive fuel price hikes that have hammered commuters and the economy.
Whilst appreciating the price tag of this relief, it should be extended until fuel prices return to pre-war levels.
Similarly, the long-awaited review committed to by government since 2018 on the fuel levy and taxes that consume a third of the fuel price is needed and engagements at Nedlac on how they can be reduced, resume.
This necessitates placing the Road Accident Fund under competent management and upon a path to financial sustainability; e.g., the pilferage of its overstretched resources by lawyers must end, and the necessary legislative amendments to ensure its resources are targeted at the poor must be expedited.
The substantial investments by government in Metro Rail and efforts to return it to full capacity need to be accelerated alongside greater investments in public transport from our trains to buses and taxis.
This will provide commuters cheaper and faster means of transport to get to work, boost workplace productivity, and reduce road congestion and wear and tear.
The Reserve Bank needs to reduce its over-enthusiasm for increasing the repo rate at the sight of the slightest inflationary pressures. Yes, we must keep inflation low to protect workers’ wages, but we must also avoid excessive rate hikes that bleed workers’ meagre wages and suffocate economic growth.
The private banks need to reduce their shamefully high lending rates they charge low-income workers.
Eskom has done well to defeat the crisis of loadshedding that once crippled the economy.
It now needs our collective support to end its dangerous dependency upon above inflation electricity tariff hikes.
This requires a decisive plan to tackle the R120 billion municipal debt owed to Eskom, increasing at an alarming rate of R20 billion annually.
All consumers, be it government, businesses or households, must be moved to prepaid electricity. That is the only way to ensure that all electricity consumed is paid for. Those involved in illegal connections must be prosecuted.
Eskom must be enabled to expand its renewable and nuclear energy generation capacity to reduce its operating costs.
Treasury and COGTA must ramp up efforts to capacitate local government to deliver basic services, particularly to working class communities and tackle their massive financial leakages and above inflation municipal tariff hikes.
Cosatu successfully led an effective campaign to reduce GEMS massive premium hike this year. Similar campaigns and premium cuts are needed for other medical aids who exploit members’ vulnerabilities.
Endless court challenges to the National Health Insurance’s rolling out must end and a plan to ensure universal access to healthcare put in place.
Strategic support should be provided for agriculture sector to shield food from inflationary pressures, from ensuring Transnet is returned to full capacity to reducing the price of diesel and providing greater support for emerging farmers.
If inflation continues to rise, then adjustments must be made for social grant recipients, and in particular the 8 million SRD Grants beneficiaries that have only once received an inflationary adjustment since it started in 2020.
Food parcels should be provided for Old Age Grant recipients and other indigent households.
The income threshold for NSFAS recipients has never been increased for inflation since its introduction 8 years ago. It too must be adjusted.
The Two Pot Pension Reforms have injected an invaluable R70 billion into the pockets of 4 million highly indebted workers whilst boosting long term savings for retirement. The next phase of these progressive reforms must be accelerated.
The South African Revenue Service must be allocated greater resources to raise the tax compliance rate from 68% to 75% by 2029. This will ensure the state has the resources needed to fund public services whilst reducing the increasingly suffocating tax burden upon working and middle-class families.
The private sector must play its part by paying a living wage, wage increases to protect workers from inflation and reducing its shameful wage gaps, in particular in the financial, mining, construction and retail sectors.
Government and the private sector must act to end retrenchments, plus revamp and expand public employment programmes to provide millions of unemployed a path to employment.
What we cannot afford to do is to normalise the abnormal. Workers are drowning. A bold and decisive Marshall Plan to rebuild public services, stimulate economic growth, create decent jobs and tackle the unaffordable costs of living is long overdue.
Solly Phetoe is the General Secretary of Cosatu.
Solly Phetoe is the general secretary of Cosatu.
Image: Doctor Ngcobo / Independent Newspapers.
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