21/05/2025
Publication: SWF
Author: Simbamgodi Lala
The SWF, CWAO, the South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) and many other organisations have been campaigning against the secret negotiations between other union federations, government and business at Nedlac to amend the labour laws.
This included on a new Draft Code of good practice on dismissal which aims to give bosses more powers to dismiss workers (especially those that are still within the three months term of employment).
MayDay was the day to launch a huge protest against these changes to labour laws. Just before the May Day event, CWAO and SWF embarked on pamphleteering to workers across different workplaces, shoping malls and taxi ranks. We went out every day from as early as 6am. Our aim was to send awareness to workers about the proposed amendment bill as well as the May Day event.
We talked to hundreds of workers in the streets. Mostly, these workers told us that they had already lost hope in traditional trade unions as these unions keep on failing them. Even worse, labour broker workers are ignored by unions except for SWF.
Just before MayDay, CWAO and SWF said we would only agree to participate in the May Day event on condition that the gathering will not have long speeches by union leaders. Instead, the event should be the platform for workers themselves to raise their views.
This is something unions have failed to achieve for many years. Instead workers are paying monthly subscriptions as if they pay funeral covers while they are not being informed about their rights by the very same union leaders who negotiate these changes to the labour laws.
In many unions, workers are not even given worker education about how to challenge employers who are constantly exploiting workers. This means that workers continue to struggle on a daily basis with their labour rights being violated even when they are members of traditional trade unions.
Labour broker workers are worse affected. Despite the 2018 Court judgement against TES which clarified that after three months of service, labour broker workers must be deemed permanent by the client company. But till today the workers are still for sale.
We even find representatives of anti-worker union federations like Cosatu and Fedusa agreeing to a minimum wage which is far less than a Living wage.
Until a living wage is prioritized, workers are still earning peanuts. Simply meaning they are paid only to feed from hand to mouth and come back the following week. This puts pressure on workers and they end up targeted by loan sharks.
However, on MayDay in Beyers Naude Square in Joburg, over 1000 workers protested against these issues. A hand made coffin marked Nedlac highlighted where one of the problems was.
The protest was very peaceful and a marked success because workers were allowed a platform to speak and raise their views on various issues that affect them. Workers pushed their own mandate instead of long speeches by the union bureaucracy.
Furthermore, the labour broker system was lambasted by the workers.
The workers demanded that trade unions must change their approach and offer training and education to workers so that they may challenge bosses right there in the workplaces.
Scrap Nedlac!
Scrap the labour broker system!
