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Wearing red NUMSA and Economic Freedom Fighters T-shirts, marchers sing and dance their way along one of the city's main arterial roadways to the National Economic Development and Labor Council (by Francisco Little)
National Union of Mineworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) members turned out in their thousands in Johannesburg on March 19, demanding jobs and singing songs critical of President Jacob Zuma.
Wearing red NUMSA and Economic Freedom Fighters T-shirts and carrying a variety of posters and banners that carried messages such as Equal Work for Equal Pay and Employment Tax Incentives Act = Exploitation, marchers sang and danced their way along one of the city's main arterial roadways to the National Economic Development and Labor Council (Nedlac) outside the city, where they handed over a memorandum of understanding to Nedlac officials.
 
Wearing red NUMSA and Economic Freedom Fighters T-shirts and carrying a variety of posters and banners, protesters gather at the National Economic Development and Labor Council (by Francisco Little)
NUMSA said youth unemployment in South Africa is the third highest in the world.
"About 71 percent of all unemployed people in South Africa are between the ages of 15 to 29. Most of them are women, the majority of which have never had a job in their lives," said NUMSA General Secretary Irvin Jim, who added that South Africa ranked third after Greece and Spain in terms of unemployment.
"Half of the people between 15-29 are unemployed in this country," said Jim.
NUMSA has rejected the country's Employment Tax Incentive Act (ETIA), saying it has not succeeded in resolving high levels of unemployment. The union said ETIA subsidizes employers for taking on workers whom they would have employed anyway, and that the act would lead to the displacement of unsubsidized workers. President Zuma signed the act into law in December 2013.
NUMSA marches took place in seven cities across South Africa, and it plans to hold similar protests over the next two years.
(Reporting from Johannesburg)
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