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The burning issue of workers' rights has become too powerful to sideline or ignore, as strikes and marches in South Africa continue to grow in intensity and duration.
Last week's massive Cosatu march and the ongoing security guard strike are posing tough questions to us about our labour force as the mainstay of our economy, and their socio-political lives as workers. While such debates about labour issues and rights have been raging behind the scenes at various levels - from the government to academia and in broad sectors of civil society - they have now been thrust into the public in a way that cannot escape public attention.
It is no surprise that the discontent and anger felt by marginalised and exploited workers has spilled out on to the streets. There is a wealth of suffering around us, not least of which is experienced by workers. Perhaps, in South Africa, it may well be possible to remain blind to the depths of poverty and inequality around us.
In certain contexts, it may actually be possible to live a rarefied existence, buffered by luxury vehicles and gated communities, where one never sees the acute misery and suffering of fellow South Africans. Where one can remain impervious to the hungry street children running for hand-outs at the robots, beggars burrowing in rubbish bins for leftovers, people selling coat hangers and rubbish bin-liners at the roadside in order to earn a living.
Revolution
But it is becoming increasingly clear that there is something fundamentally wrong with society, as the frustrated voices of those at the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder become louder and louder. Certainly, it is clear that, as Cosatu Secretary-General Tony Erhenreich has observed: "A revolution of the allocation of resources needs to happen."
Statistics say that nearly 40% of South Africans are unemployed. The ranks of the unemployed have increased substantially since the late 1990s owing to consistent job-shedding in the formal sector.
The greatest job losses have been experienced in industries such as clothing, textiles and leather, which have been ruined by cheap imports from East Asia and the tariff reductions imposed by the government.
The tragedy of the Rex Truform clothing factory in the Western Cape, particularly last year's closure of its Salt River plant, is a case in point. Job losses at Rex Truform, a source of multigenerational employment for families on the Cape Flats, has meant devastating consequences for families.
The mining and manufacturing industries have also suffered declines. According to Cosatu, jobs in the clothing, mining and manufacturing sectors have been shed at a rate of about 100 000 formal jobs in the past 10 years - 17 000 in the past 12 months alone and 800 during the first month of this year.
Outsourcing and casualisation has increasingly replaced permanent work across many sectors of the economy, depriving workers of the security of a fixed wage, benefits and regulation.
In real terms, it has meant heartache and privation for working families, whose breadwinners have often been forced into precarious or exploitative forms of employment for survival's sake, or no employment at all.
There is little by way of a social security net to cushion such shocks for workers.
Although social spending figures indicate substantial increases going to the poorest sectors of society, there are real problems in how social grants are administered and how they are accessed.
For example, retrenched or newly unemployed workers can only access the UIF grant if they have registered with the fund, assuming a permanent formal job - and even then, only for a period of six months. The long queues seen outside UIF offices bear testimony to the desperation and need experienced by workers.
The Labour Relations Act is often lauded as the cornerstone of workers' rights in a new South Africa.
Improvement
Although the wealth of improved labour rights contained in the Labour Relations Act has not always translated into meaningful implementation, there is no doubt that the Act represents an improvement in the lives of workers.
But legislation does not protect a whole other category of marginalised and flexible workers, such as migrants (particularly illegal ones) and casual workers.
The focus on a "permanent job" located within a workplace under the control of an employer, excludes other workers who do not fit that paradigm. And, of course, legislation and rights mean little to people without jobs.
What we are seeing is both the disempowering effects of globalisation and the economic exclusion that state policies have allowed - resulting in declining standards of living and increasing unemployment and hardship.
South African workers are incredibly vulnerable in such a context, and the government can, and must, act with regard to social expenditure, social security grants and social wages, to protect workers from the harsh economic realities of globalisation.
We cannot continue to dig our heads into the sand like ostriches and remain impartial to what is happening around us. If there is no strong, regulating state, and if the government remains an omnipotent abstract entity located in our administrative capitals, then conditions for workers will continue to deteriorate - to the detriment of the economy and the nation.
Annsilla Nyar is a research fellow at the Centre for Civil Society
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