'As political and union leaders, we have all heard the workers and understand their frustration,' Ramaphosa said.
03 May 2022 - 19:57President Cyril Ramaphosa abandoned his Workers' Day address after chaos broke out at Royal Bafokeng Stadium in the North West at the weekend. File photo.Two days ago, SA’s workers joined millions across the globe in marking Workers' Day, also known as May Day.
It was such a partnership that led to the introduction of a national minimum wage in 2019, a process that I was privileged to lead, giving effect to a demand that had been made more than 50 years before at the Congress of the People in Kliptown. And it is these partners that are, at this moment, again engaged in deliberations on how to accelerate growth and create employment.
Since the advent of democracy, significant progress has been made in improving the social and economic position of the poor and working class through the improvement of conditions of employment, the general provision of basic services and access to education and health care. While the pandemic has affected everyone in our society, it is the working class and the poor who have suffered most. They have also been the most affected by service delivery failures, corruption, crime and weaknesses in local government. It is the working class and the poor who were affected most by the public violence and destruction in July last year, and who were most vulnerable when catastrophic flooding struck parts of KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.
This is happening alongside measures to promote employment, like the Presidential Employment Stimulus, which has provided work and livelihood opportunities to more than 860,000 people since it was started. It includes the expansion of the Employment Tax Incentive to encourage small businesses to employ more people, a loan guarantee scheme that has been redesigned to provide finance to smaller businesses, and the reduction of the red tape that holds back the growth of businesses.
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