Unions’ protests hurt vulnerable

Timing in politics – and in pursuing the “workers’ revolution” – is everything. Trade union umbrella body Cosatu’s threat to bring the country to a standstill today with a general strike is deliberately scheduled before Finance Minister Tito Mboweni delivers his first budget speech.

Sadly for Cosatu, there is already so much chaos and disruption across the country, thanks to Eskom’s load shedding, that the workers’ demonstrations and their withholding of their labour might pass barely noticed.

The irony of the union muscle-flexing is that it is predicated upon highlighting the plight of workers.

But workers are already a privileged section of society because they have jobs and earn wages in a country with crippling high unemployment. Secondly, the psychological damage inflicted by a general strike is likely to have most sensible investors fleeing for safer pastures.

And, guess what? When they go, they will take the jobs with them – no matter what the socialist pie-inthe-sky dreamers in the unions, the ANC and the Economic Freedom Fighters would have you believe.

If that is not enough, the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union is calling out its members tomorrow to pressure authorities to improve salaries and working conditions for staff in the tertiary vocational and education training colleges around the country. That means tens of thousands of students, hoping to improve their lives and earning prospects, will have their education disrupted.

So, what is going on here, in a country which appears to be losing its collective mind?

People have learned over the years that protesting and making a noise are far better ways of solving problems, or simply getting their own way, than working in “the system”.

And they don’t care who gets hurt in the process.