02:14South Africa: Thousands strike in Johannesburg over job losses
Thousands of members of South Africa's largest trade union federation took to the streets of Johannesburg on Wednesday to protest job losses throughout the country.
The action was part of a nationwide one-day strike called by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). The organisation is calling for a moratorium on job cuts in both the private and public sector, amidst fears that many of its roughly 1.5 million members could be rendered jobless by recently announced plans for South Africa's state owned power company Eskom.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced plans in his state of the union address on Thursday, to divide Eskom, which supplies 95 percent of the country's electricity, into three separate entities for generation, transmission and distribution. Eskom's finances are reportedly in such a poor state that it can't afford to meet the interest payments on its huge debts, with reports that it could be effectively insolvent by April 2019.
02:14Thousands of members of South Africa's largest trade union federation took to the streets of Johannesburg on Wednesday to protest job losses throughout the country.
The action was part of a nationwide one-day strike called by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). The organisation is calling for a moratorium on job cuts in both the private and public sector, amidst fears that many of its roughly 1.5 million members could be rendered jobless by recently announced plans for South Africa's state owned power company Eskom.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced plans in his state of the union address on Thursday, to divide Eskom, which supplies 95 percent of the country's electricity, into three separate entities for generation, transmission and distribution. Eskom's finances are reportedly in such a poor state that it can't afford to meet the interest payments on its huge debts, with reports that it could be effectively insolvent by April 2019.