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How is it possible to adequately feed a family of four on less than R1 000 a month, asks Terry Bell in his Labour Wrap.
Cape Town - Trade unions will be justified later this year when they demand double digit pay rises, says Terry Bell in his latest Labour Wrap. And he adds that farm workers who this week received a wage determination giving them an increase of less than R1 an hour have every right to protest.
There are also, Bell adds, problems relating to political affiliations. This concerns not just Cosatu’s links with the governing ANC, but also the relationship of Cosatu and several unions to the World Federation of Trade Unions that includes North Korea.
The overall result is that the labour movement is now weaker than at any time since the transition from apartheid, and there is now the prospect of a fifth trade union federation coming into being. This fragmentation is happening in the face of the ongoing global economic crisis, the collapse of the rand and the effects of drought.
Everyone, says Bell, will be affected, to one degree or other, by these events that he says are the result of both a lack of foresight and planning and the vagaries of “an anarchic free market”. But those who will suffer most will be people on low incomes and those, such as pensioners, on fixed incomes as well the army of unemployed men and women.
The reason such people are most affected is because the only expense over which they have control - food - has increased at a rate that exceeds official inflation or CPI. How, he asks, is it possible to adequately feed a family of four on less than R1 000 a month?
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