cosatu

The hot topic on everyone’s lips at the moment is the Gauteng e-tolls and the threat of mass civil disobedience. For those of us living down in the Western Cape, where we don’t do tolls (except for one tunnel and one “scenic road”), this is of limited interest, save for individuals who are utilising the fuss for political aims.

One group who are particularly vocal in their opposition to e-tolling are Cosatu. They represent over 2 million workers across SA and they are a politically active organisation as well, so it makes sense for them to be involved. But their latest call to arms and their threat to mobilise their members in “the mother of all protests against the act of highway robbery” have awakened the cynic in me (who only ever dozes lightly anyway).

Here’s their plan:

Cosatu is planning several rallies, marches, demonstrations and night vigils at the offices of the SA National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) and the transport department across the country from April 23.
These would lead up to a large “national stay-away or socio-economic strike” on April 30.

Monday, April 30th hey? That seems like the ideal time to do this, since that’s when the e-tolling is due to start (although it seems likely to be postponed amidst the current chaos). But there’s something else about Monday April 30th that we should note: namely that it is the only working day between Thursday 26th April and Wednesday 2nd May.

Yep, if you take into account the public holidays on 27th April and 1st May (and who wouldn’t?) then adding 30th April as a “stayaway day” means that you get a 5-day weekend.

How very convenient.

I predict further mass action in June when Zwelinzima Vavi et al work out that Youth Day is on a Saturday this year and will therefore not attract a day off work.

On the plus side (because there’s always a plus side), this e-tolling row could turn out to be the great unifying event South Africa has been crying out for. Mandela might not have to die. Unfortunately, recent worldwide events have suggested that great unifying events have generally not been great when the incumbent government in on the other side.

After his extraordinary claims that the new Cape Town cycle lanes were racist:

Cosatu is outraged that the DA in the Western Cape and the City of Cape Town prioritises bicycle lanes for the white wealthy citizens, while poorer communities on the Cape Flats are subjected to over-crowded and unsafe public transport

Cosatu provincial secretary Tony Ehrenreich has now gone even further, suggesting that wildfires in the peninsular “are only found in well off, white neighbourhoods”.

This follows last night’s huge blaze at Oudekraal between Camps Bay and Llandudno: two of Cape Town’s most exclusive suburbs. Ehrenreich stated:

Take a look at the Oudekraal fire yesterday. If we consider the location of that fire and we extrapolate it to the wider metropole, then it is clear to see that 100% of the veldfires in the Cape Town area are in or close to wealthy white areas. This is an appalling disparity and Cosatu is outraged that the DA in the Western Cape and the City of Cape Town prioritises wildfires to these areas while poorer communities on the Cape Flats aren’t subjected to any fires at all.

Ehrenreich backed up his statistics by indicating that when considering the Oudekraal blaze, it could clearly be noted that there were no fires in areas such as Khayelitsha or Grassy Park – and this despite the fact that the latter was really very grassy and could have gone up at any time.

The Oudekraal fire was only in Oudekraal – in our view, the evidence is conclusive.

This dichotomy only existed, said Ehrenreich, so that the Provincial and Municipal DA could use fire-fighting equipment and personnel in these areas to “impress their white voters”:

They’ve got a shiny new helicopter and they want to show it off

When asked if he could provide any further examples of Provincial monies being used in supposedly racist ways, Ehrenreich was quick to point out that Cosatu had evidence that more than 98% of the Western Cape Provincial paper budget was spent on white paper.
Asked if Cosatu had looked into the stationery budgets of other (ANC-led) Provincial governments, he accused the reporter of trying to change the subject and then said that the interview had to end as he had to attend an(other) appointment at a local private hospital.

Tag: cosatu

Stayaway Day

Now Ehrenreich targets “racist fires”