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On 9 July, Community Works Programme workers gathered at the Johannesburg City Hall in protest against the low wages the South African government continues to parade as livable salaries.
Unlike the seasonal chill of winter, the bitter economic conditions prevail – putting the South African majority out in a state of permanent cold as the "employed poor".
The Community Works Programme (CWP) is a 2010 government programme that aims to provide "an employment safety net". Workers earn R12 an hour, working eight-hour days for two days of the week.
That’s a slim R736 per month.
One of the protest organisers from Roodepoort, Patricia Bhodlani, explains the position of most CWP workers. "I am the mother and father [of my household]. They look to me for everything. This [wage] is not enough."
In eight years on the job, Bhodlani has not seen an increase to her income.
Despite being a government programme, previous efforts by CWP workers to engage the state officials go unheard.
"They say that they don’t know us," explains Lehae resident Caroline Zulu. "Yet I am wearing their uniform with the government sign," she states, gesturing at the South African Coat of Arms on her orange work suit.
'Willing and able'
Whilst the programme claims to "give those willing and able to work the opportunity to do so, and afford them the dignity and social inclusion that comes from this," the wages and lack of social benefits suggest otherwise. "We have no maternity leave, no UIF [Unemployment Insurance Fund]. They don’t give us payslips and we have no sick leave," says Zulu.
UIF would provide some relief to workers who find themselves unemployed or unable to work because of maternity, adoption leave, or illness.
Without payslips, there is no accounting for regular pay. No payslips means the process of registering for low-income housing, tax registration, application for private rental of housing or even buying a cellphone becomes virtually impossible.
As the crowds’ struggle songs grow in momentum, another group of marchers pass down Rissik Street: South Africa Postal Office workers with a list of demands not dissimilar from their orange-clad counterparts. As opposed to the Postal Office’s proposed 6% increase in wages, workers are demanding a minimum of 12% (4% for each year that saw no increase).
Weekly, new and old concerns are raised about the continued impoverishment of the African working-class majority. From the unprecedented increase of VAT to the 25 April General Strike as led by SAFTU (South African Federation of Trade Unions) against the proposed National Minimum Wage of R20 an hour (R3 200 a month if you work a 40-hour week), and the curtailing of trade union workers’ rights to organise and strike. The economic relations produced in our society point to a deeper structural endemic.
How is it that workers produce 100% of this nation’s wealth, but are reduced to an average hourly income of R12, while CEOs of the top companies in South Africa earn an average of R69 000 a day? How is it that those who do not lay a single brick – let alone lift a finger – earn 600% more than those who produce the commodities that generate the profits for the elite few?
The CWP workers handed over their demands to representatives of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature. They gave a 14-day waiting period for the government's response.
In this profit-driven economic system, the struggle for a living wage, to live a human existence, continues.
* Mikaela Nhondo Erskog is a fellow of the Unit for Humanities at Rhodes University (UHURU). Her research interests involve rethinking intellectual traditions in recent SA History. Views expressed are her own.
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