Although the Congress of SA Trade Union's (Cosatu's) nationwide stay-away yesterday, in protest of e-tolling and labour broking, may have been a political success, it cost the economy billions, says the business sector.
Business Unity SA (Busa) says the costs of the strike action on the economy were very high. It adds that based on reports received from its members, legitimate business activity was disrupted in a number of key areas of the country, especially the port centres of Cape Town and Durban. Production and deliveries have also been seriously interrupted in several sectors of the economy.
“Busa regrets the reports of strike action violence, intimidation and destruction to property emanating from Cosatu's national mass protest action. Where such violence has occurred, individuals - whether affiliated to a specific trade union or not - must be held accountable for acts of criminality. Repeated mass action protests also carry the risk of damaging SA's international investment climate.”
The association says it does not believe the mass action has strengthened the South African economy or created new jobs, or taken the discussions on labour broking and e-tolling any further.
“Busa hopes the issues at stake around labour broking and e-tolling can now continue to be constructively discussed or negotiated in the appropriate structures to find acceptable compromises as soon as possible.”
Blocking highways
The Freedom Front Plus is now planning its own protest action against e-tolling, according to parliamentary spokesperson on transport, Anton Alberts.
The party held a meeting with other role-players and decided to launch its own protest action to convince government to scrap the whole system. “The protest action will entail a protest on the highways of Gauteng itself. The details of the action will be announced formally in the next couple of days,” says Alberts.
“The FF Plus in principle supports the march of Cosatu against the toll system, but the party cannot identify itself with the other objective of Cosatu's march, such as the scrapping of labour brokers. It has always been the view of the FF Plus that labour brokers in essence are not wrong and that a combination of good regulation and proper enforcement holds the answer. Cosatu's mixing of the two issues into one campaign is reckless and alienated potential allies opposed to the toll system.”
Alternative action
Trade union Solidarity says approximately 30 200 South Africans voiced their protest against the introduction of e-tolling in Gauteng by means of text messaging and on several social media networks yesterday.
The movement yesterday called on all South Africans who are unable to participate in Cosatu's protest marches to voice their protest against the planned e-tolling system by hooting every time they pass by a toll gate on a highway; objecting to e-tolling on all social media, writing #toet in front of every message relating to protest action against e-tolling; and texting the word “toot” to 34388 at R2 per SMS until Friday.
According to Dirk Hermann, deputy general secretary of Solidarity, the majority of South Africans were unable or reluctant to participate in an actual protest march against e-tolling, but thousands of South Africans took part in the protest action in other ways.
“We are quite astonished by the overwhelming response to this campaign. Solidarity received 2 100 SMS texts by 16:00 [yesterday] and an audience of 21 100 people had been reached by means of Twitter. Moreover, approximately 7 000 Facebook users actively participated in the campaign. This response shows that South Africans are truly fed up.”
Enormous strain
Democratic Alliance spokesperson on transportation at the City of Johannesburg, Nico de Jager, says politicians should be lobbying for the changing of the Act that will allow for the fuel levy to be ring-fenced for general maintenance and road infrastructure upkeep as was intended, instead of the fuel levy being utilised to boost the general fiscus, without any real alternative to private car use in the form of reliable public transport.
He explains that boycotting of the registration for e-tags will ultimately result in civil disobedience while the real issue - that the roads had been upgraded and need to somehow to be paid for - will continue.
“South Africans are currently paying roughly 33.6% per litre of fuel in taxes through a fuel levy. More than one-third of the price of every litre of petrol put into your car goes towards the general fiscus.
“The tolling of highways as is proposed will further place an enormous strain on an already ailing municipal road infrastructure without any compensation for the additional strain placed on our municipal roads as a result of the toll fees.”
Share