ALCOHOL BAN SHOULD NOT LEAVE WORKERS TO SUFFER
22 JANUARY 2021
The Food and Allied Workers Union notes with a high level of discontent how the government treats the alcohol sector unfairly in the process of wanting to curb the spread of corona virus.
The government continues to ban and unban alcohol as and when
it decides without consulting affected stakeholders and without expressing any
position on the fact that workers are going to lose jobs while the alcohol ban
is in effect and without expressing any position regarding the informal traders
who also survive through selling alcohol in townships and rural areas.
The government should not view its decision of banning
alcohol as the ultimate solution in the process of curbing the spread of corona
virus. Authorities must find ways to mitigate the negative implications of its
decision to implement a ban and not leave workers to suffer alone.
Notwithstanding that some of our members had to endure a 10% salary cut while
others were being retrenched in the earlier alcohol ban, this current ban has already led employers taking initiatives that threaten jobs such as retrenchment
of workers in the brewing companies.
When government does not consider the dangerously high number
of unemployed people by making decisions that threaten and leads to job losses,
it goes to show that the country will ultimately end up having more than the
10.8 million currently unemployed citizens through the growing number of
retrenchments we have seen and continuing since the beginning of COVID-19.
Furthermore, the President of the country committed to
address harassment in the workplaces. While we support addressing harassment, there
are other critical challenges facing the workers’ class such as a growing list
of proposed and current retrenchment. Had the government consulted the affected
Unions, he would have been aware of the crisis instead of deciding for workers
which problems should be addressed. What good does it do to address harassment
against workers who are exiting employment in the thousands while the President
continues to remain mum about job losses. By now, the government should have already
shared the outcome of the International Labour Conference particularly those
that relates to initiatives to formulate and enforce law regarding GBV in
workplaces.
Not all multinational businesses suffer in the same way as
workers and small alcohol traders do, because they are not on equal footing to
start with. For this reason, the government must never forget its mandate to favour
those who are at the receiving end in terms of inequalities. In fact, vulnerable
farm workers in the agriculture and agro-processing are more likely to be
subjected to unemployment, which contradicts the very same mandate of creating
jobs in the country. Yet there is a deafening silence about job losses.
For many years, we have informed the government about where
funds should be sourced for purposes of addressing the fiscus deficit which
includes illicit cash outflows that led to the country losing about R140
billion per annum. In 2016, the South African Revenue Service already lost over
3.8% of its revenue through companies that falsified their invoices. Last year
alone, illicit trading in alcohol led to a loss of over R6 billion and in other
sectors, counterfeit goods of about R1 billion per annum, including corruption
that amounts to over R500 billion. The shortages of beds in the health care
facilities indicates that banning alcohol was not the ultimate solution but
addressing all the above unlawful activities including to nationalise the
entire health care system would mitigate all other adverse impact to affected
workers and in the informal economy.
We believe that these billions combined would not only have
addressed and mitigated the deficit on the government spending, but would also
have proven that there was no necessity for the country to embark on structural
reforms and source loans from international banks. These actions weakens the
country’s economy while subjecting SA into a more non-progressive ideological
stance of neoliberal agenda.
The state must also take into account that it is ultimately the
responsibility of law enforcement agencies to address the behaviour that lead
to violence, violating regulations, corruption and most importantly, to
apprehend all those who commit gender based violence and not to focus solely on
the alcohol ban as an ultimate answer.
In fact, one of the calls that the South African government
have been neglecting while other countries have not been shy to embark on is
the introduction of wealth tax that can contribute to lessen inequalities and
increase fiscus up to over 9 billion. This government preferred to focus and
implement VAT to 15%, which is a regressive tax, and evidently up until now,
could not address the national crisis of poverty, inequalities and
unemployment.
FAWU DEMANDS THE FOLLOWING FROM
EMPLOYERS AND GOVERNMENT:
▪
The
government to meet with FAWU and all affected stakeholders in the alcohol
sector;
▪
Government
should in the interim formulate a funding package designed to assist workers in
the alcohol industry and for the informal economy;
▪
Employers
to redirect their reserved funds to preserve existing jobs;
▪
All
retrenched workers to be given first preference to return back to work in
employment;
▪
Government should issue a moratorium on retrenchments, job cut,
salary cut and benefits cuts;
▪
The government to address outstanding and continue to pay UIF payments
during shutdown of alcohol.
▪
The government to announce the figure recovered by corruption on
UIF and redirect those funds to workers;
▪
The
government to implement National Health Insurance;
▪
The
government to implement Wealth tax;
▪
Nationalisation
of all strategic sectors of our economy;
▪
The government
must publicly announce funds that were recovered from illicit trading in the
country, if any.
Meanwhile we support all decisions to curb the spread of the
virus, but the government must listen to the people who suffer amid COVID-19.
Therefore, FAWU calls on the government to urgently, meet with all affected
stakeholders in the alcohol industry.
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