Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi was told to step down from his office after defending the rights of foreign nationals in South Africa.
Truck drivers is protesting against the employment of foreign nationals occupying positions they feel should be given to locals instead, especially at a time when unemployment rates are at crisis levels.
On Monday, Gauteng High Court in Pretoria granted an interdict against the planned strike, restraining the All Truck Drivers Foundation (ATDF) from organising, encouraging or inciting any protest action.
However, Nxesi explained that SA had entered into a number of agreements with fellow African nations and couldn’t simply ban companies from handing job opportunities over to immigrants.
The Minister pointed out that a policy limiting the number of foreigners a South African company may employ is already in the pipeline, but protesters aren’t satisfied.
Instead, they called on the minister to put a stop to foreigners being employed in the interim while the government finalises this quota system and continue to protest in the meantime.
