WARM WELCOME:
‘WE CAME HERE TO SAY TO THE DA YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED’
THE ANC and its allies Cosatu and the SACP descended on Nelson Mandela Bay in the Eastern Cape and used May Day celebrations to ratchet up efforts to regain control of the crucial metro.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, who addressed a Workers’ Day rally for the first time since taking over the ANC, Cosatu president Sdumo Dlamini and SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande all led their alliance components in Port Elizabeth, where the trade union federation held its main rally at the Wolfson Stadium in KwaZakhele.
The ANC was dislodged from the municipality in the 2016 local elections.
The DA has since been in charge through a coalition with other smaller parties.
Yesterday, Dlamini tore into the DA, saying the event was the beginning of a process aimed at ousting the party from power in the city.
“We came here to say to the DA and Trollip, here in Nelson Mandela Bay, your days are numbered. This is the beginning of a programme. If you expect that we shall not be coming back here, when you are treating Samwu members and the rest of the workers the way you are…”
Most of yesterday’s political talk centred on the national minimum wage. Ramaphosa used his address again warn those who to rejected it.
The national minimum wage bill was backed by Cosatu, Fedusa and Nactu federations at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac), setting the minimum wage at R3 500 a month or R20 an hour. It was set to come into effect yesterday but was postponed.
The EFF, trade union federation Saftu and its biggest affiliate, Numsa, have been the biggest critics of the national minimum wage bill, and have rejected it, calling it an entrenchment of slave wages.
“Yes, we want workers to get that type of wage, but at the same time many workers in our country would have lost their jobs and many companies would have closed.
“Even those who employ domestic workers would have said they cannot afford to pay them,” Ramaphosa said.
“We had to balance between losing millions of jobs and establishing a firm base and a foundation for us to continue waging the struggle for achieving a living wage. That is what we chose,” he said.
Nzimande slammed those who rejected the minimum wage, calling them “infantile and ultra-left”.
With Cosatu’s main rival Saftu also holding one of its rallies in the same metro, Dlamini took a swipe at the federation for accusing it of dying. “Cosatu remains a formidable force representing the voiceless, the workers.
“No one will take that away. So I don’t mind about liars. I am not going to spend my breath trying to correct liars.
“All I want to say is that let us keep going on. Let us stay focused. No one is going to distort history here, say this Elijah Barayi’s federation, Cosatu, is dying. Cosatu is not dying,” Dlamini said.
Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim slammed Cosatu leadership, accusing it of not representing workers who were affected by the current minimum wage as most of its affiliates were in the public sector dominated by professionals.
“Let us make it clear that we have no agenda to fight with workers in Cosatu. Those workers in Cosatu are just unfortunate. They now have a bunch of inferior leadership in positions,” he said, speaking at the Vista Arena in Bloemfontein.
“One of the things that Cosatu has lost unfortunately is the industrial proletariat, all the workers who stand to benefit from the national minimum wage we are demanding, Fedusa cannot speak for them. Cosatu cannot speak for them,” Jim said.