Cosatu says the government’s failure to implement a 2018 public sector wage agreement has forced it to take its fight to an international platform.
Cosatu says it will write to the International Labour Organisation to register a protest over the matter.
The African National Congress (ANC) has confirmed that the National Treasury is preparing to cut R5.3 billion in public servants’ wage increases.
Next Friday Cosatu and its affiliates will embark on a protest march to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to demand a response from the Presidency on the memorandum which was submitted in October.
Cosatu’s parliamentary coordinator, Matthew Parks explains the reason for the march.
“There’s quite a few longstanding grievances by workers both in the public and private sector on key issues around the collapse of Metrorail, the lack of safe public transport, the right of workers to work in safe conditions during this pandemic. You would know that many workers in the public and private sector have been hit by COVID-19 because of faulty PPE. The pandemic of corruption in the public service is collapsing the state and now denying workers their wage increases. We have seen many workers in SOEs being retrenched. And to date, we haven’t received a response from the government to its about going to the presidency as the head of government to force the government to give us a response.”
