Workers who vote for the DA are voting against their interests

7 May 2019  

COSATU has avoided commenting on the election campaigns of opposition political parties during the elections, many of them do not warrant the attention of the biggest federation in this continent. However, one party, the DA, has chosen to unashamedly market itself as the nemesis of workers and has promised its funders that it will stop at nothing to destroy workers’ hard-won rights.

Four things stand out in this regard in the DA’s 2019 elections campaign:

The DA’s elections manifesto promise to scrap the national minimum wage:

- The DA manifesto seeks to collapse the NMW by allowing workers to “agree” to waive it when a boss offers them a job. 

- The DA proposes that the NMW be reduced to the level of a social grant.

The DA’s elections manifesto promise to scrap all progressive labour laws:

- These include laws that protect workers from being unfairly dismissed or victimised, that guarantee minimum decent conditions of work e.g. not being forced to work excessive hours, ensure workers can work in a safe environment etc.

The DA’s elections pledge to privatise State-Owned Enterprises and retrench 1000s of SOE workers:

- Their response to the looting of SOEs is to punish workers and increase the already ballooning unemployment rate.

The DA’s Parliamentary List is 58% white and only 30% African:

- Yet the DA has been pontificating to all and sundry that they are no longer a majority white party, are the most non-racial etc.  This represents, in fact, a disservice to the national project of building a non-racial society. 

COSATU’s elections stance has always been clear, that only the ANC has shown itself to be a champion of workers’ rights.  However, it is important for workers to know that some parties, in particular, the DA is opposed to all their hard-won rights and have committed themselves to reverse them if elected.

Issued by Sizwe Pamla, National Spokesperson, COSATU, 7 May 2019