COSATU calls for workers to defend federation Peter Ramothwala, The New Age, Johannesburg, 26 April 2016 COSATU president Sdumo Dlamini has called on workers to be vigilant and defend the federation as the "stakes are high". "When you hear that a former general secretary of a federation was meeting in dark corners with the DA to forge a relationship to plan on how to defeat the ANC, you should know the stakes are high. Workers need to be combat ready," Dlamini urged. Dlamini was speaking yesterday at a pre-May Day press briefing at COSATU House in Johannesburg where he raised concerns on media reports that former COSATU general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi met with DA leader Mmusi Maimane. "We call on the workers to close ranks and defend the federation from its enemies. "We are clear that monopoly capital remains our number one enemy. We also know that a tiny minority of discredited and expelled former COSATU leaders have since declared themselves enemies of the federation. Dark corners "They meet in dark corners with racist unions such as Solidarity, DA and EFF to plot against COSATU," he said. The federation has called on all its members to come out in their numbers on May Day to brace themselves for the struggle that lies ahead. "The global economic downturn has seen workers losing their jobs at a frightening rate and most of them are struggling to put food on the table. "Workers continue to be subjected to low wages and low pension funds." Meanwhile COSATU general secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali said of job shedding in the economy, "it is deeply disquieting to see that economic growth has fallen from 1.5% in 2014 to 1.3% in 2015 and this is expected to be at 0.9%". "This is below the international average and the working class is paying the price. "According to the latest Quarterly Labour Survey, out of the 36 million people in the working age population, 24.5% were unemployed as at the end of last year." Ntshalintshali said this was happening at the same time the national Treasury under Minister Pravin Gordhan had been forcefully implementing policies that were geared towards pleasing big business and sovereign ratings' agencies. "This behaviour fits well with an international trend in which the government policies bolster the ideological existence of capitalism while at the same time heightening an offensive by shifting the burden of the economic crisis on to the working class," he said. The federation's national May Day event will be held at Moretele Park in Mamelodi in Tshwane and it will be addressed by the alliance leadership, COSATU president Sdumo Dlamini, ANC president Jacob Zuma, SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande and Sanco president Richard Mdakane. [email protected] From: http://tnaepaper.co.za/DRIVE/main%20edition/26042016/epaperpdf/4.pdf -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
