How+many+must+die+before+Mdladlana+speaks,+Edwin+Naidu,+Sindy

Sunday Independent, Johannesburg, May 28, 2006 //Edition 1//
=How many more people must die before Mdladlana speaks up?=


 * Edwin Naidu**

Our Father, who art in Heaven, why is your servant so silent? Membathisi Mdladlana, the minister of labour, makes no secret that he loves getting into the pulpit on Sundays. In the government he is not alone, with Ngconde Balfour, the correctional services minister, and Frank Chikane, the director-general in the presidency, both men of the cloth.

Several others make a joyful noise unto Jesus when not singing the praises of President Thabo Mbeki ad nauseam. This is natural, since the Bible requires citizens to obey the government. Cabinet ministers are also citizens and must obey the man who put them in their posts. But when something is amiss, some of those who love to make a joyful noise opt for silent diplomacy.

Mdladlana is the country's labour boss. His tenure has been characterised by a raft of controversial laws aimed at shaking up the workplace, ensuring that it changes from its apartheid past to reflect the new democratic order. But at a time when the country requires someone with the wisdom of Solomon, Mdladlana is tongue-tied.

Hark back to that joyous two-year period when the government's most effective spin doctor, Snuki Zikalala, left the South African Broadcasting Corporation to sing the praises of Mdladlana.

The labour minister was regularly in the news. Back then, he was not reluctant to grant interviews or make unannounced visits to media newsrooms to get a first-hand look at whether employment equity targets were being met.

But since heading back to the SABC - some still refer to it as Fawlty Towers - Zikalala's gain has resulted in Mdladlana's disappearance. Without Snuki, he's gone from hero to zero.

During Zikalala's tenure, Mdladlana was omnipresent, creating the impression he was a man with his finger on the pulse when it concerned labour. He also showed that he cared.

Perhaps he did. The two-month security workers' strike shows Mdladlana to be uncaring and sadly, hopelessly out of touch. He has resolutely refused to get involved in ending the unhappy impasse between the grossly underpaid security workers' union and employers of security guards.

"The minister is not going to intervene because the Labour Relations Act does not empower him to do so," Mokgadi Pela, his spokesperson, told The Sunday Independent a week ago.

Such a response on behalf of the learned preacher is enough to make one ill. At least 22 people, 16 brutally thrown off government-run trains, have been killed since the strike began.

How many more lives must be lost before Mdladlana gets involved?

He should also explain to the families of the dead why innocent victims on their way to work have lost their lives because a government that prides itself on looking after the interests of workers has failed them.

Security guards are fed up with being treated like animals, working 12-hour shifts under insufferable conditions and on top of that getting paid a miserly R1 500 a month or less. Their frustration is so intense that many have forsaken their meagre income to go on strike to fight for better conditions.

The violence and deaths, however, do not help their cause.

Throughout the deadlock employers have been silent, vainly taking the fight to the negotiating table.

Post-apartheid South Africa has seen a raft of regulations aimed at fulfilling the ANC's pre-1994 mantra: a better life for all. On the election trail and in celebrating a decade of democracy, the government has been patting itself on the back for what it has achieved in keeping those promises.

The security strike, viewed in context of countrywide municipal unrest over the past few years, is a harsh reminder to the government not to ignore those who need them most.

The laws concerning business have resulted in a group of black fat cats enriching themselves beyond their wildest dreams.

Those mired in the depths of the nation's underbelly of poverty, who face a daily struggle to get to work alive, have every right to feel betrayed by Mdladlana.


 * From: http://www.sundayindependent.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3266090**

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