One of the alliance partners of the ANC in the province has asked a provincial meeting discussing the province’s economy to take a resolution and ‘shut down’ the business of an owner who fired scores of workers a year ago.
The alliance partners – the ANC, Cosatu, SACP and Sanco – were holding a three-day provincial economic summit to discuss the rising unemployment in the province at the weekend.
And Cosatu provincial deputy chairman Oupa Bodibe was one of three alliance leaders who made presentations at the Nutting House Lodge in Mbombela before ANC provincial chairman David Mabuza addressed the summit. Bodibe begged the conference to close down the Umbhaba Banana Estate in Mpumalanga in solidarity with the 300 farm-workers who were sacked by the company 11 months ago.
“Organising workers means a commitment must be made that we shall not tolerate the obstruction of the organisation of workers.
“Unlike the meeting I come from in Tonga today where those workers have been staying at home without an income, without food and were denied the right to a trade union, the right to an opinion,” said Bodibe.
“Three hundreds of them have been retrenched or dismissed by the owner, so when I left that meaning they said to be I must request this summit to resolve that Mpumalanga province must urge the national government to shut down the Umbhaba farm,” he said.
Bodibe added: “Remember the farm has refused to meet the Premier, has refused to meet Cosatu, has refused to meet all stakeholders in our society. We must not allow what they doing comrades”.
The provincial economic summit, which started at 3pm on Friday 23 September, ended on Sunday and provincial alliance leaders were in commissions the whole of Saturday, discussing solutions on manufacturing, mining, agriculture and tourism.
Bodibe also asked that something be done on Lily Mine.
Workers at the Umbhaba Banana Estate were fired by their boss when they wanted to a union last year and their boss, Roy Plath, had since been described as ‘cruel’.
(edited by ZK)
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