South Africa’s biggest labour unions on Wednesday urged workers not to participate in anti-immigrant protests that have seized the country, and said they could face \u200bconsequences if they skip work to attend.<\/p>\n
South Africa is on edge ahead of \u200ca June 30 deadline which anti-immigrant groups have given for all undocumented foreigners to leave the country. Protests and potential civil unrest are expected, after weeks of sometimes violent\u00a0xenophobic attacks.<\/p>\n
Four major unions \u200bincluding the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), which represents around 2 million \u200bpeople, said in a statement that workers would not be protected \u2060if they do not go to work on June 30.<\/p>\n
“We urge workers to report \u200bfor duty and not place their employment at risk,” they said.<\/p>\n
The unions echoed President Cyril \u200bRamaphosa’s call on Tuesday\u00a0not to scapegoat migrants\u00a0for South Africa’s problems.<\/p>\n
“Removing foreign nationals from workplaces, communities or public spaces will not reopen factories, repair municipalities, strengthen public healthcare or create sustainable jobs,” said \u200bthe unions COSATU, FEDUSA, SAFTU and NACTU.<\/p>\n
Africa’s largest economy has more job opportunities than \u200bmany other African countries and has long attracted large numbers of foreign workers. Some politicians have \u200cseized on \u2060the issue in recent months to blame such migrants for widespread poverty and crime.<\/p>\n
South African media outlets reported on Wednesday that clashes had erupted between police and thousands of Malawians awaiting repatriation in the coastal city of Durban. Police fired stun grenades and \u200bteargas after a crowd \u200bbecame agitated, said \u2060News24.<\/p>\n
Malawi said earlier in the week that 10,000 of its nationals were in distress and hoping to return from South Africa. \u200bWhile the country has been organising buses to bring them home, \u200bit put \u2060out a public call for donations to assist with the effort.<\/p>\n
“Government is resolute in its commitment to bring home every Malawian who wishes to return from South Africa,” the government \u2060said.<\/p>\n
“However… \u200bthe scale and urgency of the operation have created \u200bunprecedented financial, logistical, and humanitarian demands.”<\/p>\n
Other countries including Ghana, Nigeria and Mozambique have also repatriated citizens due to \u200bsafety concerns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Africa’s biggest labour unions on Wednesday urged workers not to participate in anti-immigrant protests that have seized the country, and said they could face \u200bconsequences if they skip work to attend. South Africa is on edge ahead of \u200ca June 30 deadline which anti-immigrant groups have given for all undocumented foreigners to leave the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21154,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,2377,30],"tags":[5214,218,122,78],"class_list":["post-21153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-migration","category-southern-africa","tag-congress-of-south-african-trade-unions-cosatu","tag-cyril-ramaphosa","tag-south-africa","tag-xenophobic-attacks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21155,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21153\/revisions\/21155"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}