EFF hits out at greedy employers forcing staff to work during the lockdown

The EFF have hit out at ‘greedy employers’ who the political party claims are forcing their employees to attend work during the national lockdown that will be implemented on Thursday at midnight. The EFF said in a statement that the companies are incorrectly characterising themselves as essential services.

The EFF said in a statement: “The workforce of some of these companies is way above acceptable standards. We are aware of a call centre called Capita SA, a call centre based in Cape Town whose number of employees exceeds 400 people and has already instructed its employees to come to work in defiance of the lockdown. We are also aware of non essential companies in Wynberg Sandton who have already informed their workers to continue coming to work despite the lockdown.

The EFF further stated that they call for the monitoring of large and small firms that attempt to continue operations and put workers at risk while they do not fall in the category of essential workers. The corruption that may take place may be in the form of small and large firms applying for relief from the state while their operations continue.

The EFF said that military personnel and the South African Police Service must act swiftly and harshly on greedy capitalists who put the lives of South Africans at risk and undermine the efforts by the state to curb the spread of Covid-19. We urge all workers to identify and expose the greed of their bosses to SAPS and these individuals must be detained immediately,” the EFF statement concluded.

In other news – The role of SANDF during lockdown

The army will be deployed to support the South African Police Service to enforce the nationwide lockdown. President Cyril Ramaphhosa announced a 21-day nationwide lockdown from midnight on Thursday. Military analyst Helmoed Heitman said the role of SANDF members could vary, depending on the assistance needed by the police. They have been talking about closing down parts of the road network, to prevent people from moving much. For instance, the army could man vehicle checkpoints.

 

The other stuff includes if the police have a problem somewhere and they could help them with that but it could go beyond that if there is an unrest problem then because people assume the shops will run out of stocks and they could be deployed to protect shops and hospitals”, said Heitman. Heitman said there is no reason for people to fear because the army will most likely be using minimum force. Read more

Source: IOL