NATIONAL NEWS - Gerhard Papenfus, the Chief Executive of the National Employers Association of South Africa (Neasa), says Cosatu's ability to impact the national discourse, "has vanished entirely".

This follows after Cosatu, who is embarking on nationwide protest action, said the strike is focused on "pushing both government and the private sector to act to fix the economic mess that the country finds itself in, and take seriously the issues that are affecting workers and South Africans in general".

Papenfus says it’s incredible that Cosatu plans to achieve this by requesting South Africans to either join the planned activities across the country or withdraw their labour by staying at home on the day.

"I find it incredulous that Cosatu, now only a marginalised worker representative body for government employees, which has clearly run out of ideas, embarked on this pointless, self-serving endeavour.

"They are yearning for previous glory, but through this clumsy endeavour, they will merely confirm their irrelevance," he says.

Papenfus says Neasa will be conducting a survey to determine the impact of the protest action on businesses.

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