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Strikes a 'death penalty' for workers SAPA, The Citizen, Johannesburg, 29 July 2014 Strikes are death penalties for workers, ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe said on Tuesday. "I know the impact a long strike has on workers. and I know what it can do to the operations and the economy," he told reporters in Johannesburg. "I know that most of the time after long strikes operations end up reducing the workforce, you see that all the time. A strike means the death penalty for a number of workers." Mantashe used to be a National Union of Mineworkers shop steward. He said a solution to lengthy strikes needed to be found. "We should never tamper with the right to strike. [However] we should be more innovative about how we allow a strike to go on." The country just came out of a five-month strike in the platinum belt in the North West and a four-week strike in the metals and engineering sector. Mantashe was briefing media after an African National Congress national working committee meeting held on Monday. Earlier this month, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa reportedly said labour laws should be amended so that union members had to vote before striking. Mantashe said a strike ballot was an important tool used by trade unionists. "It gave you a sense of how far was your support. and it mobilised workers in the workplace," he said. "When I was a shop steward. I called a strike ballot for every strike because it tested them and mobilised them [workers]." Mantashe said he did not know why unions today did not like the idea of a strike ballot. - Sapa From: http://citizen.co.za/221562/strikes-death-penalty-workers/ -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
