Pretoria - Members of the National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers (Nupsaw) are set to descend onto the streets of Pretoria on Tuesday in what they termed “an unprecedented march” over grievances including widespread corruption and poor governance.
The Nupsaw protest in Pretoria will be a precursor to the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) national shutdown protest action scheduled for Wednesday.
“The National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers will lead an unprecedented march on (Tuesday) 23 August 2022 that will see the country’s capital, Pretoria, on complete lockdown. The working-class community, led by Nupsaw, will occupy several government department offices and then wrap up the mass action with a night vigil at the Union Building,” said Nupsaw general secretary Solly Malema.
“The purpose of the demonstration is to reflect the broader societal concerns resulting from poor governance, austerity measures, corruption, Neo-liberal policies and many other government failures. These failures have resulted in the swelling cost of living, rolling electricity blackouts, sky-rocketing fuel prices and job losses amongst other issues.”
Malema said the current socio-economic challenges in South Africa have now gone past crisis level.
He said the march would start at the offices of the minister of health, where workers will demand the following:
- Permanent absorption of all community healthcare workers
- Permanent absorption of Expanded Public Works Programme employees
- Permanent employment of all Covid-19 contract workers
- Insourcing of security officers and cleaners
“From there, we will proceed to the department of social development, where we will raise similar issues, but in respect to the absorption of community care givers, national youth and child workers and insourcing of cleaners and security officers. The union will then proceed to the offices of the Government Pensions Administration Agency and the National Treasury to express our anger with the manner in which the scheme is mismanaging the workers’ pension funds,” said Malema.
“The Union Buildings will be our last stop for the day, where we are going to hold a night vigil. President Cyril Ramaphosa will be asked to come out in person to receive our memorandum of demands because his ministers in various departments have failed to lift a finger in addressing our long-standing concerns.”
At the Union Buildings, Malema said the protesters would demand that President Cyril Ramaphosa addresses the following:
- End austerity programmes
- Address rolling electricity blackouts
- Provide a living wage and basic income grant
- Stop privatisation of State-owned enterprises
- Deal with alarming job cuts and record levels of unemployment
- Deal with high levels of violent crimes, police killings and gender-based violence.
IOL