The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa strongly condemns the decision of the South African Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee on 17 March 2016 to raise the repo rate by 25 basis points, taking it to 7%.
It is a decision taken purely in the interests of white monopoly capital, particularly the banks, with no regard to its inevitable negative impact on workers and the poor and the worsening of an already serious economic slowdown.
Workers who are struggling to pay increases in food prices, electricity tariffs and school fees now face having to find more money to pay off bonds, car repayments and interest on loans, which so many are being forced to take out just to survive.
Even more worrying is the danger of even more jobs being lost, as firms already struggling to remain solvent could decide that the additional cost of paying higher interest will force them into bankruptcy or retrenching staff.
Numsa is fighting to save every job, and for wage increases to protect workers from the rising inflation, which this latest interest hike will push up even further, but recognises that these attacks are symptoms of a broader socio-economic crisis. The repo rate increase is yet another example of the government, and its agencies like SARB, slavishly following the capitalist agenda dictated by ratings agencies and implemented by the government, the Treasury in particular.
This attack on workers’ living standards and jobs makes Numsa and the working class as a whole more determined than ever to build a new militant, independent and democratic union federation and a revolutionary workers’ party to challenge the dictatorship of white monopoly capitalism and fight for the socialist alternative.
For further comment please phone Irvin Jim, Numsa General Secretary, on 073 157 6384.