Saftu Rejects:

• the proposed National Minimum Wage
• the attempt to amend the Labour Laws to undermine the right o strike.
• the proposed amendments to the BCEA to do away with sectoral determinations
• the mismanagement of the water crisis in Cape Town
• the Vat increase
• the so called free education in the current form as being presented by government.

Working Class under Attack

New Dawn or same wine in a different bottle

As Saftu we are clear that there is no new dawn but it rather being a case of the same old wine packaged in a different bottle.

Just as Jan van Riebeeck stole our land by distracting our forbearers with their shiny objects whilst stealing the land behind their backs so does the ANC want us to believe that President Ramaphosa  represents a new dawn. However this is far from the truth as Ramaphosa represents the distraction whilst the poor are under attack with the increase in vat, having to pay for the so called free education, imposition of a slave minimum wage, undermining workers right to strike taking away hard won gains of vulnerable farm workers and domestic workers.

National Minimum Wage or national slave wage

The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Labour is considering Labour Bills that we believe represent an assault on the constitutional guaranteed right to strike and to collectively bargain. As you are aware these rights are enshrined in the Bill of Rights. We believe that the Bills upsets the delicate balance that was struck between workers and employers rights  in the constitution.  

It is our considered view that these Bills represent the most frontal attack on workers since the dawn of democracy. We believe that these Bills are not different to a process that was started in Britain by the late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the United States. Their project just like these Bills was designed to disarm and emasculate workers.

 The intention is to impose class peace at the time when the situation workers face need more and not less protection from unions and legislation, from an overall situation that favours the ruling class – the employers. Crushing workers in favour of their class opponents will be the ultimate betrayal of the workers and the working class in general.  

More worryingly, the status quo that is being defended has meant growing inequalities, poverty wages in particular for Black workers in general and Africans in particular, growing unemployment and widespread poverty that afflicts 55% of our population as well is worsening income and overall inequalities that have given our country the infamous title of being the most unequal society on earth.

 These Bills are a product of an undemocratic process. They were agreed to behind workers backs at Nedlac, a forum where SAFTU, which is the second largest Federation that now represents 30 unions with nearly 800 000 workers remain locked out. There was no consultation with workers who are going to be negatively affected by these draconian Bills.

The key elements of the deal are:

A National Minimum Wage to be introduced from 1 May 2018 which will replace all the current sectoral determinations, and any benefits that they bestowed on workers, and entrench a poverty minimum wage on which nobody should be expected to live. The new minimum wages will be:  
• R20 an hour for most workers  

• R18 an hour for farmworkers  

• R15 an hour for domestic workers and

 • R11 an hour for Extended Public Works staff

The union leaders who signed this sell-out deal claim this is major breakthrough! They have been celebrating the introduction of the institutionalization of poverty wages through the introduction of the National Minimum Wage, which they see as part of the call “Radical Economic Transformation”. What an insult!

2. This deal says nothing about the massive salaries of the CEOs and politicians, whose representatives in Nedlac co-signed the agreement. The Deloitte accountants report revealed that the average pay of executives in the country’s top 100 companies is now R17.97 million a year, which amounts to R69 000 a day and R8 625 an hour!  

3. If that is the average, there must be many who receive even more! Executives’ salaries have risen from 50 times to 500 times bigger than workers’ wages.

4. Many of the companies who are paying these grotesque amounts to their executives are the very ones, which are demanding that the unions should agree to lower wages for their workers.

5. The President of the country is reported to be earning R3, 6 million a year. That translates to R300 000 a month, R10 000 a day and R1250 per hour! We know that this all peanuts to him because as a multi billionaire, he owns much more than what government gives to him as a salary. Yet he is very happy to pay workers R20, R18, R15 and R11 per hour. It’s a shame!

6. None of those signed this deal would ever agree to subject themselves to such low salaries but are happy to impose them on workers.  

7. SAFTU insists that the National Minimum Wage will do nothing except:

a) Entrench the apartheid wage structure  

b) Keep millions of workers trapped in poverty and slave wages  
c) Widen income inequalities that have made our country the most unequal in the world.

8. Whereas the idea of National Minimum Wage is a hard-won victory of worker’s struggle and will understandably be celebrated by many workers scandalously earning below these figures, the proposed National Minimum Wage is a legislative attempt to pour cold water on the militant struggles of the immortal mineworkers who were massacred for demanding a R12, 500 and outsourced workers marching in the streets in demand of R10 000.

9. In addition to this minimum wage, the Nedlac parties have launched the most savage attack on the constitutional right of workers to strike. It will mean that:

a) Workers must be balloted secretly before they embark on a strike. This will be organised by the unions themselves and the employers given a right to monitor the process of secret balloting. This will give employers a free rein to interdict strikes based on allegations that in some part of the country there were mistakes committed during the balloting. The constitution guarantees a right of workers to manage their own affairs, now this right is being taken away. We are told by the employers and the government to amend our constitutions to give effect to the compulsory ballots or face our unions getting deregistered.  

b) Unions must engage in a long and extended conciliation process before they can strike.  

c) Employers will have a right to approach the CCMA and the courts to force compulsory arbitration if in their view the strike is lasting too long and is having a big impact on the economy and the company concerned.  

10. This will give employers enough legal reasons to stop any strike at all, even just by claiming that it will adversely affect their business, which is precisely what a strike is intended to do. It will turn workers into virtual slaves. It will unleash a war on workers’ rights, liberty and living standards.

We demand these bills be scrapped and government to stand firm on the side of the farm workers who produce our food; the security and cleaning workers who keep our buildings safe and clean; the domestic workers who help us in our homes and look after our children; the truck drivers who spend many days driving goods we need across our sub region of SADC; the workers working in the Extended Public Works who at times build and maintain our public infrastructure.  These workers and others not mentioned require protection. They are vulnerable and they are the face of untold abuse in our labour market.  We cannot stand by and allow their circumstance to become a permanent feature of our democracy.  We reiterate our demand to  scrap these Labour Bills.

Reject the increase in vat

We are concerned about the rise in indirect taxation (VAT, excise duties and the fuel levy) because:

• These are the least progressive taxes. The cumulative share of indirect taxes paid by the lowest 70% of income earners exceeds their cumulative share of disposable income.

Increases to these taxes are therefore likely to exacerbate inequality and poverty.
 

• The poor are not adequately protected from a VAT increase through existing zero-rating measures. While beneficial, less than half of the poor's food basket is spent on zero-rated goods, not all zero-rated goods are optimally targeted and many other essential goods are not zero-rated (such as canned beans, margarine and soap). Food consumption patterns mean that an increase in VAT actually has the potential to push the poor away from zero-rated items. Considerably more is spent on tax breaks for higher-income earners than on zero-rating.

The tax measures introduced must be viewed in the wider context of financial strain faced by poor households. In particular:

• Increases to social grants have barely kept pace with CPI inflation and often lag behind food price inflation. Increases to social grants also lag significantly behind increases on excise duty and the fuel levy. The spending power of the poorest is already being eroded.
• Poverty and unemployment have risen in recent years and wage growth for the majority is weak. This indicates that there is little ability for those with low incomes to absorb the tax increase.

We do not accept the unsubstantiated assertion by National Treasury that an increase to VAT will "have the least detrimental effects on economic growth and employment over the medium term". The National Treasury also fails to consider that:

• Section 9 of the Constitution requires the state to "promote the achievement of equality" through "legislative and other measures designed to protect or advance persons ... disadvantaged by unfair discrimination" and by not unfairly discriminating against such persons. This means that regressive taxation measures may violate fundamental obligations in the constitution.
• Raising VAT can increase inequality while raising Personal Income Tax, Corporate Income Tax and taxes on property can reduce inequality. This is important because inequality leads to negative social outcomes and reduces economic growth.

We believe there are alternatives to the current budget proposals that would make the tax system more, not less, progressive. Among these are:
 
1. Increasing ad valorem excise duties on luxury goods and expanding the number of goods covered by these taxes.
2. Expand zero-rating to include more items commonly consumed by low-income groups, with particular attention to the needs of women and children, and review existing zero-rated items to assess how they can be optimally targeted.
3. Institute a higher VAT rate on luxury goods that could also offset any revenue lost due to expanding zero-rating.
4. Reduce tax breaks that predominately benefit higher-income households (such as on pensions and medical aid).
5. Make up the necessary revenue gap through an increase in effective tax rates on Personal Income Tax, Corporate Income Tax and property taxes.
 
Water Crisis

AS Saftu we reject and condemn the use of to Water Management Device’s

• We condemn the installation of WMD’s as a solution to the crisis as it Commodities water. The Poor are the hardest hit by the installion of these weapons of mass destruction. No money no water.
• Many of thse Meters are faulty and the community is forced to pay for these faulty meters. The Beneficiaries from the sale of these wmds’ are the DA partners in big business

The City was warned about the water scarcity and the demand outstripping the supply way back in 2001

We accept we are in a drought (but it is not that we were not warned of the drought) however the bad management of the resource has led to this crisis.The City was aware of the crisis way back in 2003 and failed to take adequate steps to ameliorate the affects of the drought.

Their solution to the crisis lies in the privatisation of water by turning it into a commodity with the forceful installation of water management Devices (WMD’s). The city has spent more than a billion rand on purchasing these devices and forcing it upon the poor yet in areas of Constantia where the high users are being rewarded with 25l buckets to save grey water and not being forced to install WMD’s shows the hypocrisy of the DA government

• We say not to these weapons of Mass Destruction
• We say no to the Privatisation of Water through unaffordable desalination plants
• We condemn the water bottling companies that are still, bottling water from sources within the Western Cape and thereby profiteering form this crisis.
• We say yes to the fixing of leaks
• We say yes to the channelling of spring water into the water systems and not let it run to waste.

Way Forward

• In response to these attacks on workers and the working class Saftu has resolved to embark on rolling mass action to defend workers and communities from these neo liberal attacks.
• We agreed that workers struggles and community struggles are interlinked and thus embarked on a consultation process with civil society organisations to join forces in the defence of the working class. We are therefore starting our campaign with a March to parliament on Thursday 12 April to hand over memorandums to the Speaker of Parliament as well as the mayor of Cape Town.
• Workers and community members will gather from 10am at Kaisergracht from where we will proceed to parliament.

 

Issued by Saftu