The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) and #OutsourcingMustFall are marching in Johannesburg on Thursday in protest against outsourcing and the use of casual workers in the public and private sectors.
They are demanding that employers in the public service hire staff directly‚ provide medical aids and provident funds and pay a minimum wage of no less than R10‚000 a month.
The groups also want government to scrap the use of labour brokers and called on Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba to permanently employ all city workers.
“The Life Esidimeni outrage has highlighted in the most extreme and horrific way the dire consequences of outsourcing to outside organizations work as important as medical care‚ without any proper checks on the quality of the care being offered‚” the federation said in a joint statement on Thursday.
“Esidimeni however is just the tip of the iceberg. Hospitals and clinics around the country are hopelessly understaffed and under-equipped‚ as their budgets shrink‚ staff are retrenched and work is outsourced to private companies. It is the same story in schools and universities‚ national‚ provincial and local government departments even prisons. Jobs are lost and services are reduced.”
Outsourcing was justified in terms of cutting costs and saving money but there was growing evidence to suggest that doing so in the public sector did not save money in the long run‚ the federation said.
“The profits which go to the private companies swallow up more money than is saved by retrenching permanent staff.
“This all happening in a country where‚ by the expanded definition‚ unemployment stands at 36.8%. 9.4 million people have no job and 3.2 million South Africans aged between 15 and 24 are neither employed nor enrolled in education or training‚” said SAFTU.
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