Dlamini said Zuma's suggestion that the youth could be exempted from paying for e-tolls across Gauteng would not solve anything.
"We should not encourage a piecemeal approach to the public. We have been sidetracked on this whole e-tolls debate and are not focusing on the real issues. Let's move away from that debate," Dlamini said on the sidelines of the labour relations conference in Pretoria, hosted by the Public Service Commission and the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council.
Zuma told businesspeople, academics and professionals that the government would consider exempting the youth from paying e-tolls. This followed a complaint from one student driver who said paying for e-tolls would be near impossible.
For Dlamini, whose union federation represents more than million workers, the real issue was creating an efficient, affordable and safe transport system for South Africans. "The debate must move on that premise - a good public sector transport system," he said.
Cosatu has threatened mass action against the government's bid to force motorists to pay for the system. Dlamini said Zuma's signature did not mean the debate would stop as Cosatu would still raise the issue - even in the upcoming secretariat's meeting of the tripartite alliance.
This is the same meeting in which Cosatu intends to fight the proposed Youth Incentive Bill, which Dlamini said was parachuted to Parliament without due process.
Cosatu believes the bill is no different from the youth wage subsidy as it would have the same adverse implications, including displacing unsubsidised older workers and imposing downward pressure on bargaining. Dlamini spoke of the importance of strengthening dialogue in the workplace.
He gave as an example the delays by the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council in rolling out the new government housing scheme as among other things that frustrated workers.
"It's things like these that lead to strikes," he warned.
Source: Sowetan via I-Net Bridge
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