Cosatu to join ZCTU in next month's strike

HARARE – The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) will next month join the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) in its two-day strike by demonstrating "in all the establishments of the Zimbabwe Government".

In a statement released in Harare, the ZCTU said COSATU would target Zimbabwe government establishments such as its High Commission in South Africa in solidarity with the general strike called by the ZCTU on 3 and 4 April.

Cosatu, which has been one of the ZCTU’s major blocks of support over the last seven years, said it would never turn a blind eye to the ruling Zanu PF government’s abuse of workers and human rights.

The union’s international secretary, Bongani Masuku said while Cosatu recognised "the heroic role" played by the Zimbabwean government and its people in the liberation of South Africa during apartheid, that did not mean it would "close its eyes when Mugabe's government trampled on workers' and human rights while blaming all his country's problems on imperialists".

Masuku said Cosatu appreciated, however, that "perhaps President Mugabe" and Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, were among the "very few world leaders willing to confront head-on the naked hypocrisy and general aggression of the United States government".

"Whilst it is true that the global balance of forces limits space for more radical change, he (Mugabe) too must take personal responsibility for leading his country from being the breadbasket of our region and continent to being the basket case of our region and continent," said Masuku.

The militant workers’ body, noted at its recent executive committee meeting that the human rights situation in Zimbabwe was getting worse "as reflected in the swelling tide of migrants fleeing into South Africa which has led to widespread exploitation of these workers by unscrupulous employers who are taking advantage of their situation whilst at the same time distorting the South African labour market".

According to the ZCTU statement, the committee resolved "to struggle to organise and protect these and other vulnerable immigrant workers and to demand harsh penalties for employers breaking the labour laws".