Johannesburg - A number of South Africans treated May Day and International Workers’ Day as business as usual yesterday, going about living their lives.
As millions of workers across the globe celebrated the day, some citizens saw it as a normal day as many of them are unemployed and are not in tertiary institutions or places where they can gain skills.
According to Statistics South Africa, the country’s unemployment rate decreased by 0.2 percentage points to 32.7% in Q4-2022 compared to Q3-2022.
Socialist Dr Trevor Ngwane said there was little for workers in South Africa to celebrate.
“Living standards and the everyday lives of ordinary working-class people and the poor are terrible. There are so many problems, such as load shedding, unemployment and rising inequality, that there is little to celebrate,” Mgwane said.
He said workers in South Africa are among the strongest in the world in terms of union organisation. He added that although union organisation is low in South Africa, it's among the highest in the world in general.
“The union movement was very strong. Remember, it led the struggle against apartheid. The problem started when they made this alliance with the ANC and the SACP, and then the unions stopped fighting an all-out battle; they were holding back some of their strength because they thought that their alliance partner was now running government; that is the source of the problem," said Ngwane.
Founder of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), Joseph Mathunjwa, said the work they have done to change the lives of the working class where they are representing workers has changed.
Yesterday, in an interview with a broadcaster, Mathunjwa said they observe the day with the events of the Marikana Sibanye Stillwater Massacre having overtaken the day.
“Lonmin Marikana Sibanye Stillwater was where the democratically elected government turned the guns against its own electorate, people who put them into power while protecting the interests of the foreign direct interest.”
Mathunjwa said one must remember that at Marikana Lonmin, workers were earning R4 000 a month; they were demanding R12 500.
“As a result, the government, serving the interests of neoliberalism in the white monopoly capital, massacred 34 mine workers. Today I can report back to the nation that there are no workers at Lonmin Marikana Sibanye Stillwater who go underground earning less than R15 000 as a basic salary, including the benefit,” said Mathunjwa.
It’s been seven years since Lily Mine in Mpumalanga collapsed and trapped a container underground. Inside it were three employees: Pretty Nkambule, Yvonne Mnisi and Solomon Nyirenda. Their bodies are still trapped underground.
Amcu, along with other organisations and political parties, have been at the forefront of the move to have the container retrieved.
Mathunjwa said this has opened wounds for the families and everyone who lost their loved ones, not having closure.
“You will remember from the days of former president Jacob Zuma, Amcu was at the forefront to try to persuade the government, to which the government never responded, even with the current sitting state president, Cyril Ramaphosa. We have written to his office requesting his assistance, because we thought that the sitting state president would have a soft heart because he is a former trade unionist. He was our leader during the days when he was still with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).
“We even wrote to Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe, because he was also our secretary during the NUM days, but all our efforts fell on deaf ears. I’ve been saying even to their families that the government has the first right to retrieve them, because they are the custodians of the minerals of this country and are the ones who are issuing the licences,” Mathunjwa said.
The Star