{"id":44977,"date":"2012-03-05T19:25:31","date_gmt":"2012-03-05T17:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=44977"},"modified":"2012-03-07T08:43:29","modified_gmt":"2012-03-07T06:43:29","slug":"massive-e-toll-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/business\/44977-massive-e-toll-protest.html","title":{"rendered":"Massive e-toll protest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Come Wednesday, Cosatu<\/a> and all its affiliates will be engaged in a general strike against e-tolling, as well as against labour brokers, the casualization of labour and attempts to restrict the right to strike.<\/p>\n

In a statement on Monday, Cosatu said it was receiving overwhelming support for one of the \u201cbiggest mass protests in years\u201d.<\/p>\n

Thirty-two marches will be taking place around the country on the day.<\/p>\n

These include only one in Gauteng, where the e-tolling of the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP)<\/a> is set to commence on 30th of April this year.<\/p>\n

The march will be led by Cosatu General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi<\/a> who has on many occasions urged motorists to simply engage in a mass civil disobedience drive and not register for or pay the e-tolls in protest. The march will start at the Library Gardens and march to the Premier\u2019s Office, the Chamber of Mines, SEISSA and also the Department of Transport and Roads.<\/p>\n

The South African Municipal Workers’ Union has pledged its support to the protest action, saying that the GFIP and the Wild Coast and Cape Winelands Toll Highway Projects were \u201cill-conceived, likely to have corrupt elements attached to it and too expensive for the majority\u201d of South Africa.<\/p>\n

The union said that country\u2019s public will already have their \u201cpockets emptied\u201d after the scheduled petrol hikes taking effect this week and also those to follow in subsequent months.<\/p>\n

\u201cMunicipal workers will sacrifice a day\u2019s wage for the greater good and encourage others to do the same,\u201d the union said in a statement.<\/p>\n

According to Samwu both unionised and non-unionised members of society will be able to take part in the protest action scheduled for Wednesday as Cosatu obtained the necessary permissions for the protest action.<\/p>\n

\u201cApart from scrapping the toll road projects, government must investigate as to who was responsible for steam-rolling these projects past public and stakeholder consultation as well as all the relevant checks and balances. This for us is highly suspicious, given the amounts of money involved in the various toll road projects,\u201d the union said.<\/p>\n

A mass stay away will cost the country productivity.<\/p>\n

According to the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of South Africa, the strike comes at a considerable cost to the industry\u2019s workers and their employers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe anticipated loss of a day\u2019s production and wages is regretted by SEIFSA \u2013 particularly, as it comes at a time where the majority of firms engaged in the metal and engineering industry are struggling to remain viable, and where the retention of current employment levels is under significant pressure,\u201d the federation said.<\/p>\n

Source: Moneyweb<\/a><\/p>\n

Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n

e-Tolling prices<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Third of e-tolling fees go to collection<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cosatu and its affiliates engaging in general strike and 32 marches, also against labour brokers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":340887,"featured_media":37791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[5756,6525,8029,35,9519,3672,9517],"class_list":["post-44977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-cosatu","tag-e-toll","tag-e-tolling","tag-headline","tag-samwu","tag-seifsa","tag-zwelinzima-vavi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44977"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/340887"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44977"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44979,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44977\/revisions\/44979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}