Cosatu president S'dumo Dlamini. File picture: Itumeleng English Cosatu president S'dumo Dlamini. File picture: Itumeleng English
Johannesburg - Cosatu has backed down on its national strike planned for next week in protest against the Tax Law Amendment Act.
This comes after the government decided to delay parts of the retirement reform law by two years and to reopen the consultation process with labour and table proposals for a comprehensive social security plan.
This week, the government announced a bill to postpone the controversial tax reforms affecting workers’s pension funds.
Yesterday, after its central executive committee meeting, Cosatu said cited the government’s turnaround as the reason for cancelling the strike. The union's U-turn came despite the federation vowing to go ahead with the strike, fearing the ANC had made the concession as an election ploy.
“The federation shall deepen its mobilisation until all workers' demands are met,” said Cosatu general secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali, addressing journalists in Joburg.
“We shall continue to monitor the progress of the negotiations and will keep having mobilisation activities, including pickets, demonstrations and shop steward councils, to update workers on developments.”
Read also: Cosatu vows to proceed with mass action
The trade union federation said, while it wanted the state to completely scrap the retirement reforms rather than delay their implementation, the caving in by the government represented “first signs of victory” for workers.
However, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe described the delay as “an academic exercise and semantics”.
“The issue that people are complaining about of preservation [pension funds] will only kick in in at least five years and up to 10 years for others,” he said.
The retirement reform law has been the latest source of tension between Cosatu and the ANC, with the federation threatening not to campaign for the ruling party in the local government elections if the law was not reversed.
Mantashe’s comments downplaying the federation’s “victory” on the Tax Law Amendment Act annoyed Cosatu leaders, who questioned why they shouldn’t be happy if the issues they opposed were going to be removed.
Cosatu president S'dumo Dlamini suggested Mantashe should heed his own advice when he took a swipe at former ANC leaders “for publicly projecting their time of leadership as better and superior”.
Mantashe is a former general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, a Cosatu affiliate.
However, Cosatu's central executive committee committed its support to the ANC ahead of the local government elections. Cosatu warned, though, that it would not support any councillor candidates imposed on communities or who are implicated in corruption or criminal activities.
Among other issues, Cosatu urged the government to speed up land reform and called for amendments to prohibit any compensation of individuals whose property was acquired during apartheid and colonial removals.
It also urged the government to take 50 percent ownership of all mining companies in the country.
@thabiso_tk
THE STAR