COSATU is fully behind the NEHAWU national strike at SASSA
10 October 2018
The Congress of South African Trade Unions is fully behind a national strike at the South African Social Security Agency [SASSA] by its affiliated union NEHAWU.The federation will implement the decision of the CEC that the SASSA strike needs to be actively supported by the federation because the matters being raised by NEHAWU are too important and they more beyond workplace difficulties. This strike is not just about workplace matters alone but it is also about the livelihoods of the 17 million social grants beneficiaries.
The migration of the Social Grant Payment System from Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) to the South African Post Office (SAPO) has been badly mismanaged because many of the people involved in the process did not want this migration to take place and succeed.
The delegates in our 13th National Congress re- affirmed the character of COSATU as a militant and radical federation of trade unions, which is class oriented. We are going to implement our mandate of ensuring that our federation remains occupied with broad social and political issues, as well as the immediate concerns of its members. We shall continuously strive to remain a social force for transformation.
We plan to ensure that our influence on society remains based on our organised power, our capacity to mobilise, our socio - economic programme and policies, including our participation in social alliances. This strike at SASSA is one such area where we will ensure that workplace and socio-economic problems are not separated but are fought concurrently. We call on the Minister to accede to the following matters that have been raised by our affiliate NEHAWU in order to avert the strike.
· Biometric Enrolment of beneficiaries to be suspended
· Consultation on Biometric Enrolment of Beneficiaries to be prioritized
· Job evaluation in the grants administration to be undertaken
· The option of inclusion of the biometric enrolment in the KPA’s of the specific employees to perform this function, subject to the Job Evaluation results.
Issued by Sizwe Pamla, National Spokesperson, COSATU, 10 October 2018
