UTATU United Transport and Allied Trade Union

The United Transport and Allied Trade Union – Transnet’s largest union – has this grim take on what it calls ‘the Eskom fiasco.’

‘The Government might as well start printing ‘Foreigners Only’ signs for the World Cup stadiums now, because SA’s foreign visitors will be the only people able to afford tickets to the event.

‘No section of the economy will escape the hardships to come.

‘And few – if any - are going to take the rape of their resources lying down.
‘As the nation’s visitors smile and cheer inside the 2010 football stadiums, outside them hundreds of thousands of South Africans will be involved in strikes, protests or a grim search for jobs and food,’ says the Utatu statement.

‘We have already heard the agriculture and mining sections warn of the food shortages and massive job losses that will result.

‘Similar messages can be expected from the manufacturing and service industries.

‘The suffering of the country’s voiceless unemployed and pensioners will be even greater.

“Workers in the transport industry – the people who will be expected to smoothly move hundreds of thousands of visitors between the World Cup venues – are going to be just as hard hit by the obscene rise in electricity tariffs.

‘You can beat wage earners into the ground for just so long, but there comes a point when they are unable to take it any longer. 

‘Transnet’s transport workers are already at that point.

‘Many are paid around half the rate for the same work elsewhere. ‘Where are they going to find the extra hundreds of  rands needed just to keep their stoves and fridges going and their lights burning?

‘It is the government that owns Eskom and Transnet – and which told the world ‘we are ready’ – that created the country’s power-supply mess.

‘If they – and South Africa – are to be saved international embarrassment, that same government must take responsibility for the consequences of its inaction and do better than sweep its mess under the carpets of industry, commerce and ordinary consumers’ says Chris de Vos ,General Secretary of  Utatu, Transnet’s largest Union

FOR MORE DETAIL
CONTACT CJ DE VOS – GENERAL SECRETARY
082 882 5920

Note to editors:
As at 1 August, 2009, the Transnet group’s total staff complement was 48 000.

Union membership broke down as follows:

Utatu members 23 092

Satawu members 18 720

Un-unionised 7 421

In the period 1 January 2009 to 1 August 2009, Transnet’s total numbers shrunk from 55 313 to 48 000
(2 000 employees were transferred to Prasa).

During the same period, Utatu’s Transnet membership rose from 41,75% to 45, 73%
Satawu is the larger union at Metrorail (about a 60% to 40% split). However, Utatu is the larger Metrorail
union in the Western Cape, i.e. an about 70% to 30% split in Utatu’s favour.

Satawu is basically a single race union (black members).

Utatu has about a 50/50 black/white split representing most skills types, more particularly train drivers,
artisans and their allied workers.

Utatu’s rapid growth is being fuelled by the large number of black members joining it.