Cosatu slams illegal workers

COSATU yesterday demanded an investigation and the immediate deportation of Chinese nationals who are allegedly working illegally in South Africa.

This comes after a trade union federation investigation uncovered that a Chinese state company, CBMI Construction, was allegedly allowed to bring in 242 workers to South Africa to work on a construction project.

CBMI was awarded a contract to do a R1.2 billion project at cement supplier PPC’s slurry plant in North West in 2015.

Cosatu alleges that the Chinese workers have been on the job in South Africa since October 2015 and were set to continue on the project until 2018.

“The federation is calling on the Department of Labour to investigate this matter and take steps to correct this travesty,” Cosatu said.

“We find this totally unacceptable that for a country with over 9.2 million unemployed people, some companies are allowed to bring cheap labour from as far as Asia to work in this country. We also want to see the South African companies that have allowed this to happen held accountable.”

Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said the federation had held a trilateral meeting with unions from Ghana and Nigeria where it established the company’s alleged bad workers’ track record.

“This is not xenophobia… we just want Chinese nationals to be properly documented, organised and well remunerated,” Pamla said.

“We will be asking the Department of Home Affairs and Department of Labour questions because Chinese companies are notorious for transgressing labour laws.”

Pamla said government agencies should conduct forensic investigations into the dealings of all Chinese companies in the country because they suspected CBMI was not acting alone.

“This is going to create more unemployment and will result in more unemployed people depending on government for their livelihood while the Chinese are repatriating their wages, limiting the demand in the economy.”

“Cosatu is worried Chinese companies are allowed to get away with serious labour law violations in this country and our government is doing little to protect the interests of workers and the local people.” Cosatu urged the government to confront the Chinese companies and close the legal loopholes that might be exploited.

Department of Labour acting spokesperson Mokgadi Pela was not available for comment.