Business
Uproar in South Africa over new road tolls
The march has won support from the ANC’s militant Youth League, which is embroiled in its own conflict with the ruling party which last week expelled youth leader Julius Malema for provoking divisions within its ranks.
“Roads should be paid for by the state, not daily users,” the Youth League said in a statement.
Malema, who remains in his position until his appeals are exhausted, plans to join the protest Wednesday, Vavi said.
Cosatu will also use the march to call for the scrapping of temporary jobs agencies, known locally as labor brokers, used by companies to find workers.
The union believes that the system is unfair because temporary workers have fewer rights, often working long hours for less pay.
“Labor brokering is equivalent to the trading of human beings as commodities,” said Vavi.
The union proposes that temporary work not exceed six months.
The coupling of the two unrelated issues has complicated support for the protest. While the tolls have aroused the ire of Johannesburg’s drivers, the labor broker complaint is less clear-cut, with many people relying on temp agencies to find any work at all in a nation where unemployment stands at nearly 24 percent.
Copyright 2012 AFP.
