S’Africa strike season looms after attacks on migrants

South Africa’s annual season of labour strikes often turns violent, but a recent wave of deadly xenophobic attacks has heightened fears that this year’s protests could fuel further aggression towards migrant workers. Each winter, weeks of angry demonstrations erupt in cities across the country as employees down tools and flock into the streets during pay negotiations. Employment is scarce in South Africa, and much of the frustration is targeted at migrant workers from elsewhere on the continent who locals accuse of stealing their jobs. President Jacob Zuma himself has blamed last month’s xenophobic unrest on an unnamed employer in the eastern city of Durban who replaced South African workers with migrants. In the weeks that followed, at least seven people were killed as mobs hunted down migrants from Zimbabwe, Mozambique and other African countries, forcing hundreds of terrified families to abandon their homes and seek safety in camps. The attacks “were sparked off by the conduct of an employer who fired South African workers who had gone on strike and employed workers from outside the country,” Zuma said. “The employment of scab labour usually triggers an angry reaction from workers who are on strike.” Zuma appealed for employers to avoid “pitting workers against one another,” in remarks likely to worsen industrial relations. South African trade unions accuse employers of trying to dodge demands for better conditions by hiring foreign workers at lower wages. “This is undermining labour standards,” Norman Mampane, spokesman of the country’s largest union federation, the Congress of South African Trade Union (Cosatu), told AFP. “Cosatu has observed employers under- employing migrant workers — especially in the farming, retail and hospitality sectors. “Unemployment should not be used as a disguise to attack fellow Africans,” he added.