By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) president Zingiswa Losi called on government to pass the National Health Insurance Bill and the Expropriation Bill, to accelerate the redistribution of land, by November 2023.
“We are pleased the president has heeded our call and signed the Compensation of Occupational Injuries and Diseases Amendment Act providing cover for domestic workers and increasing protections for all workers, as well as the Employment Equity Amendment Act that will require any employer doing business with the state to be in compliance with the Employment Equity and National Minimum Wage Act.
“We welcome progress being made to amend the Mine Health and Safety Act to increase protections for our mine workers. Government and Parliament must move with speed to pass the pension amendment laws to allow struggling workers access to their pension funds by 1 March 2024. This will provide relief to millions of indebted workers,” she said.
Losi added that its task remains to advance working class struggles at all levels without fear or favour.
Losi, along with President Cyril Ramaphosa, delivered the main address at Cosatu’s Workers’ Day rally in the Free State.
Furthermore, Cosatu welcomed the government’s endorsement to relieve Eskom of R254 billion of its debt to allow the power utility to focus on fixing its generation fleet and to end load shedding.
Cosatu and the ANC had hoped that tensions in the country’s labour market would not get in the way of Ramaphosa’s address in Bethlehem.
Ramaphosa was able to take to the podium to address the workers gathered at the stadium on Monday, without any disruptions.
He admitted that there was still a long way to go to address the country’s socioeconomic challenges.
“We still feel the effects of many things that have gone wrong in our country – state capture, recently we had COVID and a lack of investments. These are challenges that we have got to continue addressing but it should not be for the ANC to address them alone.”
But Ramaphosa believes the tripartite alliance, including Cosatu and the SACP, is best placed to respond to workers’ grievances.
“It is for this reason that we want a strong alliance. We need to sit down all together to discuss the alliance – how we can strengthen it, how we can reconfigure it so that this alliance continues to lead the attainment of the national democratic revolution.”
The South African Communist Party (SACP) called for unity among members of the working class.
General Secretary Solly Mapaila says, “We want to over-emphasise this point, that workers’ unity is the main weapon towards their victory. Therefore, we are committed to working with workers to strengthen the working class and unity across the board. We have made a call for the reconfiguration of the alliance in our country to maximise the importance of working class power and the critical tool of using political power in our hands as a movement.”
Watch Live in the video below:
Video Courtesy of SABC.