City Press reports that employers and unions in the logistics industry want to stop all the trucks in their fleets from operating in order to force the police to protect them from hooligans attacking their vehicles and offices.

The national bargaining council for the road freight and logistics industry will be meeting this week and could implement the action within days. According to the council’s chairperson Jack Mazibuko, its members are extremely frustrated by the actions of the All Truck Drivers’ Forum and Allied SA (ATDFASA) and the SA National Cargo Transport Drivers’ Association (SANCTDA), which allegedly blocked roads and set fire to trucks in the past and, more recently, marched to the offices of the bargaining council. The organisations claim to represent unemployed truck drivers and want to force employers to employ South Africans, rather than foreign nationals. According to Mazibuko, the groups began their campaign against the employment of foreign nationals in 2017. He admitted some employers were guilty of employing people who were undocumented foreign nationals, but claimed they were not members of the bargaining council. Last year, an agreement was reached during wage negotiations to limit the employment of documented foreign nationals to 10% of the workforce. Undocumented workers may not be employed at all. But, the ATDFASA and the SANCTDA marched to the bargaining council’s offices two weeks ago to raise the same issue again. The council has written to President Cyril Ramaphosa asking him to condemn the actions of the ATDFASA and the SANCTDA. It has also written to Police Minister Bheki Cele to request him to ensure that the police protected the members of the bargaining council. If these requests were not granted, the council would simply have to bring the industry to a halt to be heard, warned Mazibuko.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Antoinette Slabbert at City Press (subscriber access only)

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