COSATU condemns irresponsible statement on coloured jobs

The Central Executive Committee of the Congress of South African Trade Unions has today strongly condemned the irresponsible and inflammatory statements and reports claiming that at least 1 million ‘Coloured' workers in the Western Cape are going to be retrenched and replaced by African workers.

This scare was started by Solidarity, that small minority union that has not outlived the apartheid past. Its claim is being deduced from a published draft amendment to the Employment Equity Act that says in future companies should employ people guided by only by national, and not regional or provincial, demographics.  

It is COSATU's understanding that this amendment was ambiguously drafted, since no intention to delete "regional or provincial" or to change this clause has ever been moved or even suggested by government ministers or officials in discussions around amendments to the labour laws. On the contrary the government agrees that ‘coloured' workers are under-represented in the implementation of the Employment Equity and other legislation, and the proposed amendments are intended to rectify this.

Clearly Solidarity is acting opportunistically and in the interests of the Democratic Alliance on the eve of the local government elections to use a swart gevaar tactic to instil fear amongst Coloured working, drive them into the arms of the DA and incite racial divisions. COSATU strongly condemns this irresponsible propaganda.

Statement issued by Patrick Craven, COSATU national spokesperson, February 21 2011

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