Congress of South African Trade Unions says although it fully supports government’s plan to phase in the reopening of the economy, it will provide President Cyril Ramaphosa with a list of conditions that will ensure the rights of all workers.
President Ramaphosa is undertaking a consultative process on easing parts of the country to alert level three of the nationwide lockdown at the end of May.
However, the President and Health Minister Zweli Mkhize have warned that the coronavirus may last for a extended period and all necessary precautions must be adhered to at all times, even when the regulations are eased.
Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla says part of the conditions they are asking for is a law that enables the protection of workers to down tools if they feel their employer is not adequately protecting them against contracting the coronavirus.
“We have put conditions to the President, what we want is a situation where the Minister is going to issue a directive that is going to empower workers to down tools when they feel that their employer is failing. Mineworkers are allowed to refuse to work if they feel that their lives are endangered. So, we want a directive that is going to expand this to all workers under the COVID-19 lockdown. We also want more labour inspectors because that will then give us an opportunity to actually hold employers accountable.”
South Africa has recorded nine more deaths from COVID-19 pushing the death toll to 247. There are 13 524 confirmed cases of the virus according to the Health Department.
The number of recoveries is at 6 083 while over 420 000 tests have been conducted thus far.
Below is a graph on the latest COVID-19 statistics:
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