Business Day Good.jpg Decent Work Day deserves respect Theo Heffer, Letters, Business Day, Johannesburg, 5 October 2016 The Insider usually provides a lighter and frequently thought-provoking read without getting too serious. However, in dealing with World Day for Decent Work last Friday (Sense of decent work, September 28) the column was used to take a cheap shot at COSATU about its planned activities for October 7. The apparent concern with plans to "shut down the province" and the imaginative ulterior motives underlying that may arise from what is little more than populist union-speak in seeking maximum publicity for a worthwhile cause. Insider mockingly counters in similar vein, positing "exactly what constitutes decent work is not clear", and proceeding to have fun playing with words. Like good law the concept of decent work aims at limiting the power of the powerful and rich while enhancing the power of the inevitably weak poor. Most South Africans would never say "exactly what constitutes decent work is not clear". You would certainly get many and varied views, but when analysed and distilled, decent work will be summed up as the aspirations of especially the poor in their working lives, seeking opportunities that are productive, deliver a fair income and some security and social protection for families as well as prospects for personal development. It is not useful and indeed divisive to trivialise such noble aims by mocking COSATU, unions and unionism. It's been done before, but as stated by the late universally acclaimed jurist Sir Otto Kahn-Freund, engagement with free trade unions is a "conditio sine qua non of industrial relations in all except totalitarian societies". Striving, decent work is vital to our constitutional democracy and necessary at a time when there are signs of dangerous tendencies emerging towards totalitarianism. That the inequality of the distribution of wealth and income in the country is worsening to obscene levels should be the concern of every citizen. World Day for Decent Work deserves to be taken more seriously by a publication of your standing. Theo Heffer Rivonia From: http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/letters/2016/10/05/letter-decent-work-day-de serves-respect __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 14236 (20161006) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com -- -- 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]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/yclsa-eom-forum/004801d21fcd%248a09cae0%249e1d60a0%24%40com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
