COSATU reject the proposal for the reduction of existing public holidays

COSATU welcomes the Gauteng Premier, David, Makhura’s statement that his administration will not support the call for the scrapping of Good Friday or Easter Monday as public holidays.

The premier was responding to a proposal made by the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Cultural, Linguistic and Religious Communities, that the Easter Monday, Reconciliation Day and Goodwill Day should be scraped as public holidays, because they are biased towards Christians. 

The Commission subsequently proposed that three {3} religious days be provided for workers, that will be negotiated with the bosses. We are firmly opposed to this proposal and will not allow any reduction of the existing public holidays or leave days. We have informed the Commission that we reject their proposal completely and will be engaging on this critical matter at Nedlac as a matter of urgency. 

We sympathise with the need to cater for religious minorities and we are therefore proposing that all persons be allowed to take up to three {3} days religious leave, in addition to the existing public holidays. 

Our rejection of the proposal is based on the following reasons:

- Workers have struggled for decades to secure public holidays as guaranteed paid leave days. They therefore have every right to celebrate these  important days and to also spend time with their families. 

- Cancelling guaranteed public holidays ,for which workers do not need to get permission for, in exchange for religious days that they will have to beg for permission to take from their bosses ,will be a massive setback to workers and their families.

- It will result in millions of workers being denied time to spend their Easter and Christmas holidays with their families, in particular migrant workers, who need to use their full leave allocation to visit families in the deep rural areas.

- The fragmentation of the Easter and Christmas holidays will have a massive negative impact upon workers, their families and the retail, hospitality, tourist, entertainment and transport sectors, which depend upon the Easter and Christmas holidays to make their profits for the year.  This will have a negative impact on employment.

Issued by Sizwe Pamla, National Spokesperson, 9 October 2015