So big Thabo caved and decided to give a public holiday to the masses on the second of May. Labour federations, COSATU and FEDUSA put pressure on the government and big daddy Thabo totally caved! The logic was that since there we technically two holidays on Friday the 21st of March we needed to make that day up somewhere. The next piece of brilliant logic was that the 1st of May (which is rapidly becoming May Day in South Africa) was a Thursday so we should take the Friday off as well.
Let me be the first to say that clearly everyone in South Africa has to much money and would rather goof off than work. From what I understand this is an unpaid holiday for most people which shows me that there is a glut of money in the country. People are obviously earning more than they need and want to achieve a level of parity.
This whole thing ticks me off. It’s not as though the company can afford to take any more time off considering the crippling power cuts we’ve had in the last few months. The economy is in trouble due to power failures and frankly I feel as though holidays should be cut rather than more offered.
Frankly this makes me wonder about the average South African. Surely the average miner has some foresight to see how much one days worth of work could potentially affect their job stability, especially in the tumultuous environment? One days productivity amounts to millions of rands lost and frankly all this happens due to the fact that we need more time to get drunk and party.
As an entrepreneur this annoys me as there is no such thing as a holiday and this forces me to stop work as no one is available. This is clearly a problem as I have pressing issues to attend to. As a student, my work doesn’t stop after the five o-clock bell so this annoys me from that angle as well.
All in all I’m shocked that our wonderful president caved to trade federations when work is the only thing that will bring us out of this dip. Oh well, I seem to be the only one who enjoys work in this country.
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