Trade union South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) has decided to boycott the Jobs Summit.
The union says it doesn’t believe the summit will do anything to reduce unemployment, alleviate of poverty and reduce inequality.
SAFTU believes that agreements being presented to the summit have already been fixed by the three constituencies of government, business and labour and that targets that are going to be set at the summit will never be met.
However, labour federation Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) is optimistic that the summit will adopt practical solutions to help create employment.
SAFTU which represents over 700 000 members across various sectors of the economy and has accused the Nedlac constituency of blocking it from participating in the Jobs Summit. SAFTU was formed in April last year.
It say it was excluded on the basis that it has not been in existence for two years and that it therefore cannot participate meaningfully in the Jobs Summit .
SAFTU spokesperson Patrick Craven says SAFTU represents the biggest manufacturing unions in the country and that it’s exclusion from the jobs summit decision making process will disadvantage their members.
“We know for certain that there was a deliberate decision three months before to change the rules that a federation will have to be in existence for two years they knew perfectly well that SAFTU will not qualify and we suspect they know that we would rock the boat.”
Cosatu has given the Jobs Summit a thumbs up saying the economy is in a crisis with unemployment at 27.2%.
Cosatu Parliamentary Coordinator, Matthew Parks says drastic measures must be taken to turn things around.
“For the economy is in a crisis we have one in three workers unemployed and we have workers that are being retrenched we need to all come together and look at a plan to turn the economy around.”
Cosatu says it wants commitment from the public and private sector to halt retrenchments.
The union says it will negotiate a jobs plan which will help create new jobs across all sectors of the economy.
