Trade union federations are concerned about the depletion of earning power for the working class while fat cats in businesses, particularly in the banking sector, are rewarded with obscenely high salaries – pitched as high as R171-million per annum – an equivalent of nearly R500 000 a day.
The union federations, -including the Cosatu, the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu), and the National Council of Trade Unions, last week condemned the looming retrenchment of mineworkers at the Sibanye-Stillwater expected to affect 575 employees with a further 500 granted a voluntary severance package.
The unions are also worried about the “unjustifiable and obscenely high packages” earned by the CEOs in the banking sector.
The compounded effect of these injustices is bound to hurt the economy because of grossly unequal wage distribution among workers – with bank executives milking most of the bank resources for themselves and leaving the workers with crumbs “from the capitalist master’s table”.
According to BusinessTech, among the CEOs top earners, Fani Titi, head of Investec, earned, including other perks, R175-million for the last reported annual report, nearly
R500 000 a day, a figure that would be equal to a salary of a middle manager in the sector.
Titi is followed in earning power space by Mike Brown, CEO of Nedbank, who in the same reported period pocketed R92-million, an equivalent of R253 425 a day.
CEO of Standard Bank Sim Tshabalala draws a salary of R83-million a year, which is about R228 230 a day.
The next in line is Gerrie Nel of Capitec, with a salary of nearly R66-million a year; Absa CEO, Arrie Rautenbach, with R40-million, and Jacques Celliers of FNB, with earnings of R31.9 million a year.
Auditing company, PwC, attributed the revenue boost to, among other factors, higher interest rates, strong balance sheets and digitalisation efficiency.
However, Cosatu national spokesperson Matthew Parks said: “It cannot be acceptable for the CEOs of a mining company such as Sibanye to make R300-million in a year while fighting with mine workers for an extra R150 increase a month. Neither can we accept banking CEOs making obscene salaries while their organisations pay bank tellers a pittance.
“We look forward to the president signing the Companies Amendment Bill, which will require listed companies to disclose their wage gap in the annual report to shareholders and the public.
“We need to further tighten legislation to put in place the maximum wage that can be allowed.
“It is immoral to pay workers slave wages. It does not make economic sense to those workers who will not be able to buy food and have transport money they need to be productive at work or even to buy the goods businesses produce,” said Parks.
On pending retrenchment at Sibanye-Stillwater, Parks said: “We are deeply concerned about retrenchments at Sibanye-Stillwater. Our affiliate, the National Union of Mineworkers is intervening. We simply cannot afford to lose any job, let alone so many jobs threatened by retrenchment.”
“This is the reminder of the urgent need for the need to fix Transnet and the mining rights system so that industry can be unlocked, and investment secured, and jobs created,” he said.
A spokesperson for Saftu Trevor Shaku condemned the plan to retrench workers, describing the move as motivated by “heartlessness and brutality”.
“For more than 10 years now, Sibanye-Stillwater has callously disrupted the livelihoods of thousands of mineworkers through retrenchment.
Nactu’s general secretary Narius Moloto said it was sad that huge inequality gaps in incomes 30 years after democracy, “are still the order of the day.”
“What is happening at the banks is unethical and evil.”
