Since we started celebrating Women's Day 25 years ago, this is how women workers have been doing:
1. Getting outsourced
Women are usually employed in so-called 'support' or 'non-core' positions like packing or cleaning, leaving them at the mercy of labour brokers, who offer no benefits and no job security.
The Simba women packers fought for three years before getting rid of the labour broker at the factory.
2. Getting injured or sick at work and being kicked to the curb
Domestic workers are still fighting to have access to the Compensation Fund, so that they are not at the mercy of employers who may or may not compensate them for injuries sustained cleaning homes.
3. Getting physically abused
You've never heard of sex-for-shifts?
4. Getting pushed around
Mostly women workers are employed at factories on zero-hour contracts, not knowing how much they will earn from one week to the next, and getting called whenever needed.
5. Getting dismissed without hearings, compensation or even answers
Hundreds of former cleaning workers from various Gauteng train stations were dismissed by SMS in 2019 and their employers disappeared. The women went to the CCMA, PRASA offices and even the Labour Court, but left empty-handed from each place. They had spent years cleaning the stations.
That's women's work in 2020.
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