SATAWU response to "Transnet's top dogs snap at heels of private sector"

The South African Transport & Allied Workers Union ( Satawu)  condemns the immoral and excessive salaries to state-owned entities executives. South Africa is one of the most unequal societies in the world and inequality is getting even wider, as top -paid executives' salaries keep shooting up to such high levels.

The Sunday Times, 4 September 2011, has now revealed that, if the report is true, SATAWU believes that this excessive increment reinforces in the public sphere that state-owned entities can be used for material gain and accumulation. This has happened while over 5 million people were plunged into dire poverty and we have lost more than 1 million jobs.

At a time when workers are fighting to improve their current slave wages, to have 14 Transnet executives  earning between R4 -million and R10-million as reported in the article is an insult to the workers. This  huge pay hikes of top executives is unacceptable while workers fight for reasonable wages. This is yet another example of the culture of self-entitlement and greed, which has plagued the business sector and has now invaded the public service. Transnet is still a public utility with a mandate to  provide various services to South Africans as efficiently as possible. It is not, and must never become a business to maximise profits and a way of enriching a small elite of executives. 

This obscene payment by Transnet represents another example of executive fat cats taking more than a fair share of the parastatal's cream, and illustrates the massive disparity in earnings and attitudes by those at the top and the rest of their staff. It raises disturbing questions about the arrogance of these executives amidst the deepening crisis of poverty, mass unemployment, escalating costs of basic necessities, fuel and transport to the detriment of the workers and the poor.

As a union representing Transnet workers, SATAWU will keep these figures in mind and use them to convince our members that they have every right to fight for big increases, so that we can start to narrow the chasm between rich and poor in South Africa. Our demands are consistent with the COSATU Central Committee resolutions on a living wage campaign which declares that central to the demands should/must be a double digit increase.

Statement issued by Mamokgethi Reagoikanya Molopyane, SATAWU national spokesperson, September 5 2011

Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter