THE push by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) for workers to vote for the ANC in the upcoming national elections, has been labelled as a sign that the trade union was an enemy of the unemployed.
In a communique released by the labour federation titled, “Why the workers voice Cosatu says ANC is the worker’s choice for the 2024 elections,” the governing party is heralded by the union federation, as the party responsible for leading the struggle for freedom, with no other party able to take half that credit.
It goes further to list the numerous accomplishments of the governing, party including protecting and promoting worker’s rights, making significant contributions to legislations governing employment, securing crucial social gains through the provision of housing and social grants, and establishing equitable access to healthcare.
“We know that progress has often been slower than we expected when we won the great victory against apartheid 10 years ago. We could not overcome 300 years of colonialism and apartheid in a single decade. Only the ANC can make the government do even more for transformation and, where needed, deal with problem areas.
However, the federation also acknowledged areas of dissatisfaction, saying: “Cosatu remains unhappy with the government’s record on jobs. Far too many jobs have been lost, job creation has been very slow and moreover, casual, outsourced, and informal jobs have replaced many permanent, quality jobs.”
Despite these challenges, the labour federation said it continued to support the ANC as the areas of disagreement far outweighed the setbacks, and also because Cosatu could not agree on key principles with other political parties.
The DA’s Mat Cuthbert said the comments made by the ‘ANC proxies’ in the labour federation was a timely reminder that the ANC alliance, comprised of the ANC, COSATU and the South African Communist Party (SACP), were the primary enemy of the 10 million unemployed people in South Africa.
According to Cuthbert, over the past 30 years, this “unholy alliance had deliberately created a system of economic exclusion that had left South Africa with one of the highest unemployment rates in the world.”
“South Africa’s unemployment crisis was deliberately engineered by the Unholy Alliance. Instead of delivering ‘jobs, jobs, jobs' as the ANC once pledged, the destructive laws enacted by them over the past thirty years have only deepened the insider-outsider stitch-up that characterises the South African economy.”
“A small group of ANC and union cronies and cadres have benefited enormously from exclusionary practices like cadre deployment, B-BBEE, race quotas and minimum wages while trapping nearly 10 million people in unemployment and 30 million people in grinding poverty,” Cuthbert stressed.
The DA also lambasted for “going as far as alluding to the establishment of ‘war rooms’ to support the ANC before the crucial 2024 national and provincial elections.”
The Star