Cosatu lobbies for migrants’ basic rights
CONGRESS of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) secretary for international relations Sonia Mabunda-Kaziboni has said her labour movement is working flat out to lobby for the rights of all irregular migrants including those from Zimbabwe to ensure they do not suffer job losses during the COVID-19 era.
Mabunda-Kaziboni said this while responding to questions by NewsDay on the union’s efforts to assist in regularising the status of migrants from Zimbabwe.
An estimated five million Zimbabweans are resident in South Africa, with the majority believed to be irregular migrants.
Mabunda-Kaziboni said challenges emanating from the COVID-19 pandemic had exposed migrants to exploitation.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has once more highlighted the vulnerabilities of migrant workers to informal contracts; exploitative employers, unsafe work conditions, and restricted access to basic services. It is important that Cosatu continues to campaign for the basic rights of migrants to ensure that no one is left behind,” Mabunda-Kaziboni said.
“There is a danger that postCOVID-19, most migrant workers from the region will find themselves jobless if countries insist on inward-looking policies to try and alleviate local populations with populist, nationalist solutions.”
Mabunda-Kaziboni said Cosatu had taken the union position anchored on the conceptual analysis that acknowledges that the unequal global production system breeds an underdeveloped labour market orientation whose manifestations resonate with labour migration.
She said they would begin active engagement and advocating for integration of labour migration in the current development frameworks in the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) region in order to recommend the best possible ways to safeguard the rights of migrant workers’ development initiatives that could be implemented at a sub-regional level.
“In that regard, a Cosatu labour migration position paper is being developed, taking into consideration labour rights of migrant workers, labour migration and social protection portability, labour migration information support systems, labour migration and the brain drain, the role of remittances in development, the feminisation of labour migration and gender, informal cross-border trade and labour and labour migration and xenophobia.”
Mabunda-Kaziboni’s remarks came at a time when the majority of Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa are said to be of irregular status.
Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Community in South Africa Ngqabutho Mabhena said irregular migrants and even regularised migrants suffered massive exploitation by their employers in South Africa.
Mabhena said most migrant workers feared joining trade unions, which results in them being exploited at workplaces.
“We continue to work with Cosatu and other federations in what we call vulnerable workers, to ensure that they are protected, be it farm workers, those that are in the hospitality industries, restaurant workers where most Zimbabweans work and other sectors like construction. We want them to join trade union movements,” Mabhena said.
He said truck drivers often came under attack from their South African counterparts.
“The discussions with the government of SA and other stakeholders are an ongoing process to ensure that people are documented. But we are also alive to the fact that especially under COVID-19 many jobs have been lost and people are continuing to flock to South Africa. The other problem is xenophobic attacks that we have seen in the past,” he said.