COSATU corrects Star article

The Congress of South African Trade Unions wishes to correct an article which appeared in The Star on28 August 2014, headed "Cosatu backs pension changes".

It alleges that "Cosatu has backed down on calls for a moratorium on the changes the government wants to make to the retirement system" and has made an "about turn" on the issue.

On the contrary, there has been no change, and certainly no "about turn", in the policy of COSATU, whose Central Executive Committee on 12 August 2012, agreed to engage with the Minister of Finance to persuade government to include the element of voluntary participation in the pension system and made "a call for a moratorium on the implementation" of the government's proposed changes, and resolved that "if government refuses then a Section 77 notice must be submitted."

That policy remains and in no way contradicted by the quote from COSATU president S'dumo Dlamini inThe Star's article that the federation would participate in the road shows which the government is organising to tell people not to panic about the new reforms.

This is also fully consistent with the CEC resolution, which called "on our members to stop resigning based on a lie that government will nationalise their retirements. We are also calling on the merciless policy brokers from hoodwinking workers into resigning from work so that they can shift their retirement funds to their schemes". The road shows will be a means of implementing that part of the resolution.

Statement issued by Patrick Craven, COSATU national spokesperson, August 28 2014

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