The number of people who turned up for the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) one-day socio-economic march in Johannesburg on Wednesday swelled to about 2 000.

Cosatu members, in their red t-shirts, were marching for decent jobs, better access to education and healthcare and the scrapping e-tolls.

The socio-economic march, which is also taking place in other parts of the country, coincided with International Day of Decent Work.

‎Cosatu communications Officer Norman Mampane said the labour body was expecting thousands more to attend.

“We are expecting 56 000 people, more members are still arriving,” said Mampane, who also used the event to call for the banning of labour brokers. He said companies that use brokers must be exposed.

“Cosatu has been a shield for workers for many years. Today marks International Day of Decent Work. We are going to the streets to demand the end to labour issues, as well as total scrapping of e-tolls because we believe they are an invasion of public property,” Mampane said.

A group of men who work for the local municipality told ANA that there were many issues that they had with labour brokers and that was why they were attending the march.

“Today is International Day of Decent Work … we came to the march to confirm to the government and private sector that decent jobs need to be created for workers in South Africa,” said a Cosatu member who did not wish to be named.

“Integrated public transport system is what is wanted instead of e-tolls, and we want them to do away with central bargain system,”

The workers said they wanted centralised bargaining to kept.

“A worker in Pretoria must have the same bargaining campaign as a worker in Johannesburg,”

They believed that employers wanted clauses to be made that they were allowed to say the can’t pay employees better wages while they made more profit for themselves.

“People are being exploited due to labour brokers. It’s like an apartheid system. Certain laws are being approved but aren’t being implemented.”

The marchers went to Telkom offices, where they demanded that retrenchments be stopped. They are also expected to march to Gauteng Premier David Makhura’s office to demand the scrapping of e-tolls.