Numsa supports the Working on Fire workers
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa warmly congratulates the 301 fire-fighters who protested at the way they were being ruthlessly exploited while they were courageously fighting fires in Alberta, Canada, and fully supports their demands. The union also reaffirms its opposition to exploitative cheap labour schemes like the Extended Public Works Programmes (EPWPs).
The fire-fighters were working in a programme called Working on Fire, a government EPWP, which is supposed to supply training and employment to mainly young black people as fire-fighters. The scheme is run by a private company called Kishigu Holdings, which claims to be “the most successful job creation and skills development programme in the history of South Africa”.
In reality however, like all EPWPs, this is a cheap-labour scheme to exploit workers, who ought to be properly employed in the public service and paid a living wage.
They were sent to fight runaway fires, in terms of a resource-sharing agreement with Canadian fire fighting agencies, under which Kishigu would be paid $170 Canadian dollars (R2090) per 12-hour working day for each of the 301 workers.
But according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation , the fire-fighters were being paid only $50 (R600) per working day, just over $4 an hour, when the minimum wage in Alberta is $11.20 an hour.