Thousands of Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) members gathered at the union’s office in Johannesburg on Friday as part of a march calling for free education, affordable transport and the scrapping of the controversial e-tolls system.

The protesters marched to the office of Johannesburg Mayor Herman Mashaba to deliver their memorandum. Cosatu’s Gauteng chairperson read out parts of the memorandum before handing it over to Mashaba to sign.

“Cosatu constantly conveyed a very clear demand to the government that instead of e-tolls, we want an efficient, reliable, affordable, subsided and integrated public transport system.

“We will continue to demand the scrapping of the e-tolling system including the expensive toll gates and will not pay the SANRAL billing until government implements our proposed funding model for the system.”

Cosatu also ripped into Mashaba over claim that he had allegedly made sexist remarks.

“All women from Cosatu must march against him. He forgets that he is here because of a woman. He is undermining us. His reign will collapse of he keeps insulting our women like this, he must publicly apologise to the women of South Africa.”

The union also discouraged the mayor on his plans to break up Johannesburg waste management company Pikitup into seven entities to be run by private businesses, a plan he had touted during his election campaign.

Mashaba had previously said that none of Pikitup’s 4 500 employees would lose their jobs and he would ensure that the seven entities hired more people to keep the city clean.

Mashaba signed the memorandum and the union’s leadership said it would wait for his response.

The Cosatu march was also planned to go to the Department of Transport, Spar and Chamber of mines.

The march leadership said they would march to the Department of Transport every month until e-tolls were stopped.