BL Premium reports that delivering the keynote address at Cosatu’s central committee meeting in Benoni on Monday, the labour federation’s president Zingiswa Losi decried retrenchments taking place across various sectors in the economy.
She likened the loss of thousands of jobs at ArcelorMittal SA (Amsa), Goodyear, Mercedes-Benz and Glencore, among others, as workers “being stripped of their dignity” and argued that the retrenchments would lead to the weakening of the state. Losi said the four-day congress was being held during a defining moment for workers in the country, the continent and the world. “The question before us is: what is to be done?” Losi asked. The meeting is set to review the implementation of resolutions adopted at the labour federation’s national congress held in September 2022, provide political direction and focus on organisational issues before the national congress in 2026.
“Each retrenchment is not just a statistic. This is a family left without bread or electricity; confronted with a loss of home, car; plunged into debt; a community sliding deeper into despair,” the Cosatu president noted. Losi pointed out that retrenchments in the private sector were causing the collapse of value chains. “When one sector bleeds, the economy haemorrhages. Ghost towns are created, what remains is that sex workers emerge, taverns emerge. When the economy weakens, the state follows,” she told delegates.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
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