Township Rebellion

I read an article in the newspaper today that made my blood boil, and it wasn't even because of the lack of caffeine in my system (I think I've kicked the dependency; even woke up at the crack of dawn to go to gym and feel great!). Perhaps it's because every time there is a protest, they close all the streets around my area (I live a block away from parliament). Which causes a great inconvenience to me, and not to mention there is always the risk of frisky protesters damaging some of my property.

But none the less I feel today's nationwide (not just in KZN) protest against the "spiraling food, fuel and electricity prices and interest rates" held by Cosatu show a complete lack of understanding and utter disdain of economic and business principals. While I sympathize for the workers and the people who are being greatly affected by these price increases. The protest quite frankly makes absolutely no sense.

The increase in food, fuel and electricity prices are a result of a short supply in our economy and other external forces which cannot be controlled e.g. higher oil prices. A protest held by workers is perhaps the least useful and probably most harmful solution that one could come up with. Firstly the protest which brings businesses to a stand still; perhaps means an even shorter supply of theses necessities, thus potentially pushing prices up further. And the decrease productivity and demands of greater wages and lower selling price, would only mean a shorter lived sustainability of businesses in this country, i.e. larger expenses (increase in fuel, energy costs and wages) means less profit and hence a decrease in business sustainability. Should the protest be "successful", the benefits will only be short-lived. The ramifications of the pegging of prices could have detrimental long term effects. I hate to point out the obvious but when a business closes down, then there will be no wages for those workers involved in that business and it would not really matter what the prices were, would it?

I have no place for and am completely against the exploitation of workers; and for that reason unions such as Cosatu are good. But in my opinion, today Cosatu has completely missed the mark and fails their members by misleading them into a potentially even less favourable situation.