The Endumeni Branch of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) has urged employers to take the lead, to prevent employees and customers becoming infected with Covid-19.

“COSATU local leadership encourages workers and Endumeni residents to come together to fight Covid-19. This pandemic needs everyone to take it seriously and to remain safe. As we know, in our area there is a high volume of unemployment and we are aware that a number of people might fail to get themselves sanitisers, but we encourage home-made [sanitisers] to be made and used,” said Sizwe Malinga, COSATU Endumeni’s Secretary.

Mr Malinga said while COSATU was encouraging workers to remain safe, it urged employers to take a leading role to encourage health and safety measures for their employees, stating ‘occupational health and safety policies will be followed for those cases where workers become infected by Covid-19 and will need to be compensated’.

“That is why we urge the employers to provide health and safety measures for workers as well as customers, as these should be regarded as a priority,” he stated.

Mr Malinga added that despite the Covid-19 pandemic, COSATU’s living wage campaign was still on.

“We note that the national minimum wage has been achieved through hard work, and many workers have begun to benefit from such, though there are some serious challenges as many unscrupulous local employers have begun to look for ways to avoid the payment. We also urge the CCMA and Department of Labour employees to be more empowered, to deal decisively with issues of non-compliance by employers on implementation of the national minimum wage. We also wish to see the implementation of National Health Insurance to be fast-tracked, because we believe healthcare is a right, not a commodity.”

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