SACTWU Press Statement: Free Market Foundation
The COSATU-affiliated Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (SACTWU) has taken note that the Free Market Foundation has filed a constitutional challenge against the provisions of the Labour Relations Act that allows collective agreements made in Bargaining Councils to be extended to employers and employees who are not members of the councils. We understand that the application was lodged with the Gauteng North High Court.
SACTWU regards this as a direct attack on core worker rights. Worker rights are fundamental human rights.
This brutal attack against our country's democratically legislated industrial relations system, in particular its collective bargaining architecture, cannot be left unchallenged.
Our recently held National Bargaining Conference (28 February 2013-3 March 2013) where 200 worker representatives from all parts of the country, metro and non-metro areas, representing the collective bargaining interests of over a 100 000 clothing, textile and leather and associated workers, have resolved that such an attack on worker rights should be vehemently resisted. Such resistance should not be confined to the legal corridors, but also fought on the streets.
We will mobilise to resist the reactionary, right wing economic and destructive intentions of the Free Market Foundation. Their intentions are not of any goodwill. It is nothing other than to create more and more exploitative conditions of vulnerable workers, to militate against our nation's stated vision of decent work and to unleash a race to the bottom.
SACTWU intends to table a proposal to COSATU to resist this unacceptable attack at our collective bargaining rights. We will do so next week, at the federation's scheduled Collective Bargaining, Organising & Campaigns Conference taking place in Johannesburg from 12th to 15th March 2013. Our proposal will be finalised at the SACTWU conference preparation caucus on Monday 11 March 2013, and may include a massive national protected strike of proportions that this country has last seen during the times of our fight against the apartheid Labour Relations Act.
We call on all SACTWU members to be on high and militant alert, in defence and advancement of their collective bargaining rights.
Statement issued by Andre Kriel, SACTWU General Secretary, March 6 2013
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