COMMENT
Clogging up the works
T
he story goes that back in the Industrial
Revolution, the European peasants,
especially in France and the Low
Countries, wore sabots (heavy work shoes).
“There are two kinds of sabots: one is shaped
and hollowed from a single piece of wood and
the other a heavy leather shoe with a wooden
sole,” according to Wikipedia.
As machinery became more common,
increasingly taking the place of humans as
manufacturing took off, the irate peasants started
throwing their shoes into the moving parts of the
equipment, with the hopes of damaging the
machines. Their aim was to cause harm to the
extent that their employers would weigh up the
cost of replacing the machines against reemploying
the irate workforce. Thus, they became saboteurs
and were guilty of committing sabotage.
How true this is, is up for conjecture, but it
present workforce. Trouble is, tossing a few manky
shoes into a machine or two would almost be
welcome compared to the utter devastation that
definitely reflects the sentiment of South Africa’s
strikers have inflicted on machines and power
stations during their riots.
Case in point is the spate of illegal strikes held by major labour
unions against Eskom over wage disputes. The entity and trade
unions subsequently drew up a wage agreement giving workers a
7.5% increase this year and a 7% increase for the next two years
(for doing what exactly?), but not before the workers had gone on a
rampage of devastation, blowing up substations, and basically
bringing the utility to its knees — oh, and the entire Gauteng area
specifically. Rolling blackouts and sudden power outages —
normally followed shortly after an explosion — saw entire sections
of Johannesburg (remember, we are meant to be the powerhouse
of finance and industry, no pun intended) powerless, literally.
Companies had to close their doors and those of us gainfully
employed, were sent home to the glow of candlelit dinners. The
only benefactors were the restaurants that managed to run on
generators and were thus able to welcome the powerless to
their tables.
“This strike action included various acts of criminality, including
industrial sabotage and destruction of property. The industrial action
led to rotational load-shedding that impacted on society and the
economy very negatively, heightening the risk of further credit
Sabots, or clogs, were the origin of the word saboteur and sabotage
during the Industrial Revolution.
How is it that this type of action, behaviour, and destruction can be
condoned? More so in an environment where we are all
experiencing the fallout of an economy in a death spiral,
unemployment that has set new records, a currency that is fast
being likened to Zimbabwe (oh wait, they are meant to be
improving, right? Okay, make that Argentina then …), and a
government that is teetering on the abyss of utter self-destruction?
Ramaphosa may have
come in by a cat’s whisker,
but he was also head of the
unions at some stage, so he
now sits between a rock and
a hard place. To punish or not?
As far as I am concerned,
this level of strike action is
treasonous behaviour and the
unions should be given the
boot — and no, not the sabot,
they already have that …
downgrades for the country and downstream job losses for the Kim
industry,” the utility wailed. Editor
OCTOBER 2018
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