More needs to be done to protect workers

Human Rights Day is a chance to celebrate our gains and rededicate ourselves to improving workers’ lives. We have much to celebrate as a nation and as the trade union movement given the real progress we have made in advancing human rights since we became a democracy in 1994 under the ANC.

We are governed by a progressive constitution that mandates the government to protect the human rights of all citizens, and especially the most vulnerable. Critically, our highest law compels the state to interpret human rights not from a narrow liberal perspective but rather from an inclusive socioeconomic one that is appropriate for South Africa’s racially skewed society that still bears the legacy of apartheid.

Workers’ rights are human rights. They are interlinked and inseparable. That is why Cosatu was formed — not only to defeat apartheid, but also to improve the lives of workers. The apartheid economy was based on exploitation and the suppression of black workers’ human rights. Workers’ struggles and the battle to defeat apartheid were indivisible. After 1994, struggles to advance workers’ rights and improve the living conditions of working-class communities similarly remain intrinsically linked.

Cosatu is proud of how it has managed to enshrine many workers’ rights in law. More needs to be done to ensure that labour laws keep pace with evolutions in the labour market and the economy. For example, we need to protect atypical workers such as artists, musicians and actors from being denied their labour and human rights.

Our labour laws have advanced workers’ rights in a number of crucial respects. Employees now have the right to work in a safe environment, and racist legislation from the previous dispensation has been repealed. Minimum and maximum working hours have been prescribed, and workers now have paid time off and overtime pay. Maternity, parental and adoption leave are now guaranteed, and the principle of equal pay for equal work has been legally entrenched. A national minimum wage has raised the wages of 6-million impoverished workers.

Workers need to be paid a minimum wage so that they have the money to get to work, as well as the wherewithal to buy food to give their bodies the energy they need to do their jobs. Paying workers a living wage is also crucial in boosting workers’ morale and productivity, as well as eradicating poverty and indebtedness. A living wage provides workers with a chance at a decent life and enables them to invest in their children’s education. If workers are to be able to buy the goods businesses produce, they must be paid a living, not a slave, wage.

More must be done to ensure all employers comply with their legal obligations, especially in areas of the economy particularly prone to worker abuse (for example, the agriculture, domestic work, construction, cleaning and security sectors). Respecting workers’ rights is not only a legal requirement but also critical to labour market stability and economic productivity. The abuse of workers’ human and labour rights is a recipe for labour market strife.

The government, employers and society must all play a role in enforcing our laws, including the right to a safe workplace. We cannot continue to normalise the death at work of a miner or police officer every week, and neither should we tolerate the abuse and harassment of women workers.

Employment is essential for people to survive, live a decent life, and take care of their families. We live in a free-market economy where essential items — such as food and clothing, warmth and shelter, as well as transport and electricity — are commodified, meaning workers must earn money to buy these things.

We have an unsustainable unemployment rate of 41%, and youth unemployment stands at 59%. Creating not simply work, but decent work, is essential if workers are not only to survive but also to have a chance to enjoy their rights.

When unemployment is high, workers take any job, even if their employer violates their rights.

This happens when an employer makes an employee work long hours, locks him or her up in a dangerous sweatshop, or abuses or harasses that person. Reducing unemployment is crucial to ensuring workers can assert their rights.

The Employment Equity Act compels employers to transform their workplaces to reflect South Africa’s demographics. It requires employers to provide employees with a career path and invest in training them and developing their skills.

The department of trade, industry & competition has been working with various companies and Cosatu to enable workers to become shareholders in their companies. This means workers will become the owners of the companies that employ them and will move from being mere salary recipients to people who receive dividends as well. We need to move towards worker ownership to empower workers and transform our still racially skewed economy.

Workers form part of communities and depend on the public services the state provides, such as subsidised public transport, housing, social security, state pensions, public health care, policing, free basic education with meals, and funding for tertiary education. These social-wage investments supplement workers’ meagre wages, lifting them out of poverty and enabling them to build a better life and invest in their children’s future. It is a tremendous achievement that the state today spends 60% of its budget on investing in working-class communities.

Workers need a productive economy and efficient public services. We need the state to provide us with network services such as electricity, water, sanitation, roads, railways and ports to enable mines, factories, farms and restaurants to be productive. When the state struggles to provide people with these services, workplaces struggle to produce and sell their goods, pay workers and honour their deductions, as well as save and create jobs.

The right to education is a lifelong need. Educating and training workers allows them to find work and remain employed in an increasingly competitive economy. Good education gives them the skills they need, not only for today’s jobs but also for those of tomorrow. Investing in educating workers’ children is the key to overcoming generational poverty, uplifting working-class communities, deracialising South Africa, and enabling workers to retire in comfort, with their children having the means to care for them.

While we ought to celebrate the important gains we have made since 1994, we should not be complacent. We continue to struggle with a 41% unemployment rate, endemic levels of crime and corruption, millions of women and girls and other vulnerable people subjected to horrific levels of gender-based violence and sexual harassment, and a landscape still scarred by the legacies of apartheid, inequality and poverty.

The private sector also needs to play its part. It is unacceptable that the CEOs of the country’s mining, financial and retail giants earn hundreds of thousands of rands daily while miners, bank tellers and cashiers are lucky to earn that in a year. The state will never have enough resources to grow the economy and reduce unemployment.

The private sector must show greater commitment to investing in and supporting home-grown businesses and locally produced goods.

Parliament has passed many progressive laws, such as the Employment Equity Act and the Domestic Violence Act. The government needs to ensure that public institutions are adequately resourced to implement them.

We have much to be proud of as a nation and much we should be embarrassed by. We must all play our part in building that better life for all.

We continue to struggle with a 41% unemployment rate, endemic levels of crime and corruption