Unions Taking South Africa Backwards

By Allan Rotich Posted 21 May 2006 @ 07:12 pm EET     Print     Reprint     E-Mail     Comments

Nairobi (IBTimes.com) - South African President Thabo Mbeki would not impose a State of Emergency after violent protests by security guards over wages broke out in Cape Town this week, but slammed workers by saying that violence was not a method of getting a message across.

The president addressed parliament on Thursday after striking security guards in Cape Town injurined several people and damaged millions of rands worth of private property.

"Absolutely nothing entitles anybody, whatever the circumstances, to engage in the violence that we have seen," he said.The guards, protesting under the banner of the South African Allied and Transport Workers Union (Satawu), have been in wage deadlocks for several weeks.

Several analysts have pointed out that union bosses may be misleading their members to expect unrealistic gains and that the outcomes are likely to be counter-productive.

A nationwide strike called by the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) on Thursday could cost the economy as much as R2bn (about $315mn), experts said.

Business Unity of SA (Busa) chief operations officer Vic van Vuuren said that the strike would probably results in job losses.

With the economy losing money as a result of strike action, it is likely that firms that cannot afford to absorb the losses would have to lay off workers, he said.

Cosatu may be another case where union officials have misled members. Strikers want government to intervene to weaken the rand to make South African products more competitive to promote exports.

However, a decreasing rand would result in inflation, which would work against calls for wage increases and government effort to stalibilise the economy after that rand crashed in 2001.

Cosatu also said that “more of the country's growing wealth (should be) ploughed into job creation projects, training programmes and the provision of basic services”.

A devaluation of the rand and increased salaries would mean less ‘wealth’ for such projects.

South Africa is in a unique situation in that it has both high unemployment, unofficially thought to be above 40 percent, and strong labour unions.