Johannesburg - The South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) on Monday announced it will embark on a general strike over what it terms "the biggest attacks on working-class people, trade unions and the poor" since the end of apartheid.
The nationwide strike, taking place on Wednesday, will be over the national minimum wage, amendments to labour laws as well as economic challenges facing workers and the poor.
Saftu in a statement said it would rally its affiliates and allies in civil society to demand "action to end the country’s crisis of unemployment, poverty and inequality".
"In particular we are mobilising workers against a ferocious declaration of war by the ruling class of white monopoly capitalists, who are trying to get Parliament to pass new laws which will entrench poverty and threaten workers’ Constitutional right to withdraw their labour."
"Support is growing daily and we are confident that we shall bring South Africa to a standstill and fill the towns and villages with angry workers, employed and unemployed, members of all unions or none, who are demanding action to end the country’s crisis of unemployment, poverty and inequality.
Saftu added that: "six days later, we shall be reassembling our forces in Bloemfontein and elsewhere for the traditional May Day celebration, the day when workers around the world honour the memory of our fallen heroes and heroines and recommit to the struggle for the unshackling of the workers from the chains of the employers and their co-conspirators in government".
The general strike will take place in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Bloemfontein but Saftu added, that additional marches would take place in other locations.