COSATU on Murder of Selby Mayise Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source - mukoni@cosatu.org.za COSATU STATEMENT ON THE SENSLESS MURDER OF COMRADE SELBY MAYISE MAY 14 1999 COSATU condemns the senseless murder of National Union of Mine Workers' (NUM) Carletonville regional Chairperson, Selby Mayise, yesterday. Comrade Mayise was addressing a meeting of workers in which he sought to explain changes in death benefits and pension payments which, according to section 37 c of the Pension Funds Act, spreads payments over a period of time as opposed to handing over lump sums. The law also covers payments to children born of single parents. We support the Pension Funds Act. We believe it is a just piece of legisaltion which sets out to benefit workers and their families. Both COSATU and the NUM are aware of cases where pensioners or dependents have used up pension and death payments in a short period of time, only to revert back to the cycle of poverty soon thereafter. Neither COSATU nor NUM is prepared to encourage the abdication of a parent's responsibility of supporting their children. We believe that miners at the West Driefontein Gold Mine have been infiltrated by counter revolutionary elements hell-bent on undermining the NUM, the trade union movement as a whole and the interests of working people. So desperate are they in the pursuit of this agenda, that they are prepared to disrupt a meeting - and, as if that was not enough, assault and murder all who try to reason with them. Such forces have waged a similar campaign in the North West Rustenburg Mines under the banner of the United Democratic Front aligned Workers' Mouth Piece Union which first made newspaper headlines when it led ill-informed workers to a march and sleep over at the Union Buildings in Pretoria demanding that workers be given the UIF and pension contributions while still employed. Further, in October 1997, the Mail & Guardian reported on allegations linking the very same Mouth Piece to a string of assassinations directed at NUM members and the union's leadership in the Rustenburg Mines. Opportunistic, irresponsible and criminal actions such as these, which COSATU has condemned all along, go futher than misleading workers about the workings of pension and provident funds - they strike at the entire democratic labour movement in South Africa. We call on the South African Police Services to bring the perpetrators of this cruel and senseless deed to book. Comrade Mayise will be dearly missed by his family, comrades, the democratic movement and the entire trade union movement. ======================================================= Issued By: Mukoni Ratshitanga (COSATU Spokesperson) Communications Department COSATU HQ 1-5 Leyds Cnr Biccard Streets Braamfontein, 2017 P.O.Box 1019 Johannesburg, 2000 Tel: +27 11 339 4911/24 cell:082 821 7456 Fax: +27 11 339 2281/5080/6040 E-mail: mukoni@cosatu.org.za ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytaf-05.14.99-20:40:48-1034