NUMSA Easter Message
The National Office Bearers (NOBs') of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) wishes the workers and the poor of our country a blissful and peaceful Easter Weekend, starting this coming Friday 18 April -ending- Monday 21 April 2014.
During this period many workers and the poor will be on the road travelling to various destinations of worship, whilst many will be going on holiday. Road fatalities remain a matter of concern during this period, and we call on those travelling to exercise extra caution on our public roads. We have witnessed many lives perishing on our roads during this period, especially bread-winners, as a result of reckless driving and through accidents related to drunken driven or fatigue.
We are calling upon everyone to observe all traffic rules, and for commuters to be vigilant against drunken driving and vehicles that are unroadworthy.
We urge those who will be travelling using buses, taxis and other modes of public transport to have an eagle's eye by ensuring that they are being driven safely and in roadworthy vehicle.
Look out for drunken drivers and report them to authorities. During this period, greedy bus and taxi owners do not care very much about the safety of passengers, they are interested only in making huge profits! No amount of desperation must compel travelers to use unsafe and un-roadworthy vehicles: remember always doing this will be a hospital bed, injuries or a graveyard for you!
The mineworkers have been on strike over the past three months in demand of a living wage and improved conditions of employment. Obviously, the majority of these mineworkers will be going home this period with their bags full of poverty and despair, and without necessities for their families or loved ones, whilst on the other hand the mining oligarchy or bosses will be enjoying expensive holiday trips with their families and wives and girlfriends.
Numsa is calling upon the organized and unorganized working class to provide all the solidarity and support we can to all miners. Post the Easter holidays, Numsa will be engaging other unions and civil society formations to formulate a national response to this combined government and mine bosses assault on the miners.
On the 27th of April this month, we will be celebrating 20 years of our neoliberal liberal democracy which has not uprooted our colonial economy and society, and its symptoms of mass poverty, unemployment and extreme inequalities.
Our ruling politicians and elites are busy spreading the ideological fog of a "good story to tell", whilst the Black African majority is faced with abject poverty and living under scandalous conditions 20 years into our neoliberal democracy. Our country remains a place where poverty and opulence exists-side-by-side. The economic jewelry of our country still resides in the hands of our previous oppressors; whilst we, the majority of South Africans who are Black and working class, only celebrate our stinking shacks or Apartheid old streets re-named after our liberation stalwarts.
Our true story remains that of class struggle to build an egalitarian society as envisaged in the Freedom Charter, as opposed to the current neo-liberal path that favours the bosses and politicians and their extended families.
For us the working class, it is aluta continua! For them, it is Looting Continues!
Despite everything else, we wish our members and the Christian community a joyous and peaceful Easter weekend.
Statement issued by Castro Ngobese, NUMSA National Spokesperson, April 16 2014
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