Trade Unions welcome the declaration of December 27 as a public holiday

Following the announcement by the South African parliament to declare December 27 as a public holiday, trade union Fedusa has welcomed the news.

This comes as a massive relief to the working class and many may call it an early Christmas present as president Cyril Ramaphosa announced.

President Ramaphosa opted to declare Tuesday, December 27 as an extra public holiday following massive lobbying from several trade unions.

As Christmas falls on a Sunday this year, South African law states that whenever a public holiday falls on a Sunday, the following Monday will be treated as such.

In this instance, though, the Monday following December 25 is already a public holiday, called the Day of Goodwill, also known as Boxing Day.

It would essentially have meant workers would only have 11 paid public holidays this year, while South Africans are entitled to 12 paid public holidays every year as BusinessTech Africa previously reported.

According to a trade union federation, Fedusa, Riefdah Ajam is part of those unionists who lobbied for this development and spoke to CapeTalk’s Lester Kiewit.

Ajam explained that through Fedusa, they took on this fight in light of the challenges facing their members in the retail and hospitality sector among others.

“Our mandate is to extend the protection of decent work and a decent life for all South African workers and we have attempted to do just that, so absolutely great news today amid this load shedding that we’re gripped into. Workers have not been robbed of the public holiday that they so deserve,” said Ajam.

“To all those naysayers, we are not looking for an extra public holiday, we would have been robbed of an extra public holiday. To all those workers working on shifts, working on public holidays, the front line workers, hospitality sector workers, they will be given their due, so it’s an absolute victory for workers today.”