Cosatu: Government to blame for retrenchments
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has reacted to Standard Bank's retrenchment plans by saying the country isn’t ready for the fourth industrial revolution.
The trade union federation says it is deeply concerned over looming retrenchments at Standard Bank.
Africa's largest bank by assets plans to cut 526 information technology jobs as part of plans to restructure its IT division.
“This is a sign that our government isn’t prepared for the 4th industrial revolution because most of these people are skilled, qualified IT technician who skills are starting to be redundant,” says Cosatu spokesperson, Sizwe Pamla.
Standard Bank, which has more than 54 000 employees in Africa, has become the latest company to announce that it will be embarking on a section 189 process to retrench workers.
Pamla shifted the blame to government for not enacting programs and legislation that will compel companies to continuously re-skill workers.
“You have a government that doesn’t have a plan to deal with this – it’s a real reason for us to worry. It’s no longer just an argument that people are ill-educated or not qualified.”
The trade union has called for the amendment of the Labour Relations Act in a bid to place a bigger duty on companies.
“Government must start with amending section 189, we need to force these companies to re-skill who skills are becoming redundant – we are not going to have an economy in the next few years if we going to chuck out people with skills."
ND