Unions affiliated to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) in the South African Post Office (SAPO) and Gauteng metro police have promised to assist with the fight against e-tolling.
The South African Press Association (SAPA) reports SAPO staff who are members of the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) on a go-slow in protest against e-tolling, which was launched on Tuesday.
They have reportedly been urged to work even more slowly when dealing with communication to non-payers from the South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL).
“They must work extremely slow[ly] when dealing with those SANRAL letters. If they have to sort out 100 a day, they should make it one a day,” CWU Gauteng secretary Aubrey Tshabalala said, adding workers should work “slower than a snail”.
HumanIPO reported on Tuesday COSATU in Gauteng had declared “Black Tuesday” for the poor and the working class after the launch of e-tolling, promising civil disobedience against the policy.
“We wish to confirm that as COSATU, and all other working class formations opposed to the e-tolling, will continue to fight for the scrapping of the unjust system,” Dumisani Dakile, provincial secretary of COSATU in Gauteng, said in a statement.
“We will continue to mount campaigns on the freeways, hunger strikes, sit-ins, lunch-hour demonstrations, stay-aways and civil disobedience by not buying e-tags and also not paying for the e-tolls, as part of our programme moving forward, and also persuading all of those who have bought the e-tags not to register and not to open their account with SANRAL.”
Tshabalala said: “We want the system to completely collapse. We are very disappointed that after Cosatu marches and engagements the system [still] continued.”
He promised the campaign would intensify the campaign against the system would be intensified in January.
Traffic officers in Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg who are members of the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) are also on an unofficial go-slow.
Traffic was heavy on roads in Johannesburg yesterday as motorists avoided the highways that have been subject to e-tolling, according to the city’s metro police.
The FFP, the Democratic Alliance (DA), the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (OUTA), the QuadPara Association of South Africa (QASA) and civil rights organisation AfriForum have all vowed to continue the fight against the controversial policy.
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