LAUNCH OF #BigNewRights Campaign
2018-08-27
By
DATE: SATURDAY, 6 OCTOBER 2018
LABOUR BROKERED WORKERS CLAIM THEIR #BigNewRights
CONTRACT WORKERS CLAIM THEIR #BigNewRights
PART-TIME WORKERS CLAIM THEIR #BigNewRights
CWAO and Simunye Workers Forum are launching a new round of the #BigNewRights campaign.
On 26 July 2018 the ConCourt found in favour of the demand of labour-brokered workers to become the permanent employees of client companies only after three months of on-going work. There is now renewed interest in the #BigNewRights won for labour brokered, fixed-term contract and part-time workers in the amendments to the Labour Relations Act in 2015.
The workers are ready to claim their #BigNewRights.
The bosses are already undermining the rights of the workers.
We are launching this campaign to support the workers.
We see this as a very important battle within the broad struggle of the working class and its allies for social justice and liberation. This is part of the struggle for a #LivingAndSocialWage to end the poverty wages and inferior social services forced on working class people by neoliberal capitalism.
Women workers have formed the Simunye Women Workers Forum and are taking a lead and putting their imprint on this campaign. They are demanding:
- An end to the sexual harassment and violence done to them by especially managers of labour broking companies
- Men and society must take responsibility and provide solutions for child care
- Equality in wages and benefits
- Women friendly and women only organising spaces.
Labour-brokered and other precarious workers are crucial to the workers movement as a whole. The main federations of the established trade union movement have turned their backs on these workers. They are all caught up in agreements with the bosses that protect the privileges of union leaders and some of the rights of their members while give the bosses a free hand to super-exploit labour-brokered and other casual workers. This is part of the reasons why this movement is dying as an agent for social justice. This campaign is therefore part of the struggle #TowardsANewWorkersMovement.
There are more than 5.4 million workers in ‘non-standard’ (casual) employment in South Africa according to Stats SA. As far as we know, les than 20 000 have claimed their #BigNewRights since 2015.
The bosses are throwing armies of lawyers, propagandists, disciplinarians and armed security guards into the battle to stop the #BigNewRights.
The unions are focused on their own battles around cushy state jobs and union investment companies. They openly take the side of the bosses against labour-brokered workers in many cases.
The CCMA is overwhelmed already, even though a tiny fraction of casual workers have referred cases.
A campaign of mass mobilisation is the only way labour-brokered, contract and part-time workers will be able to CLAIM THEIR #BigNewRights
SATURDAY 6 OCTOBER 2018
LAUNCH OF THE #BigNewRights campaign of labour-brokered, contract and part-time workers