With national government in the process of talking to various sectors of society about easing lockdown regulations to level 3, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) on Friday said that the move could save workers’ lives.
President Cyril Ramaphosa is currently meeting with labour and business under the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac).
This as part of consultations aimed at gradually reopening an already struggling economy further battered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cosatu’s Mathew Parks said: “For us, we’ve always been clear that we need to save both workers’ lives and their jobs. We can’t sacrifice either, they go hand-in-hand together. But as we reopen the economy, our condition has been for any workplace to reopen there must be a health and safety plan in place.”