19/06/2026
Media Statement
*POPCRU Supports COSATU’s National Protest Action Against the Escalating Cost of Living*
The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU) expresses its full and unwavering support for the Congress of South African Trade Unions’ national protest action against the escalating cost of living, taking place across all provinces today, Friday, 19 June 2026.
This national action is both timely and necessary. It gives organised expression to the daily cries of millions of workers, public servants, the unemployed, pensioners, youth, and working-class communities who are being crushed by rising food prices, unbearable transport costs, unaffordable electricity and water tariffs, high interest rates, medical aid increases, and stagnant wages that are continuously eroded by inflation.
COSATU has correctly characterised the cost-of-living crisis as having reached alarming levels, with demonstrations planned across the country to demand urgent action from both government and the private sector. This campaign arises from COSATU’s Central Executive Committee resolutions, which identified steep increases in food, energy, transport, electricity and water costs as among the major factors pushing working-class families deeper into debt.
As POPCRU, we support this action because our members are not immune from these harsh realities. Police officers, correctional officials, traffic officers, and other workers within the Criminal Justice Cluster wake up daily to serve the country under difficult and often dangerous conditions, yet their wages are increasingly swallowed by transport, food, school fees, electricity, water, debt repayments and medical expenses before they can even meet the basic needs of their families.
It is unacceptable that workers who safeguard communities, maintain correctional centres, enforce the law, manage overcrowded facilities, respond to violent crime, and hold together the institutions of public safety are themselves unable to live with dignity. No society can claim to value law enforcement and public safety while the workers responsible for these functions are forced to survive on shrinking disposable incomes.
The current economic conditions are not merely statistical figures on inflation charts. They are lived experiences in workers’ homes. They are seen in lunchboxes that are becoming emptier, in families that are forced to choose between transport money and groceries, in workers who borrow to buy food, in public servants who survive from debt to debt, and in communities where poverty becomes fertile ground for crime, violence, substance abuse and social instability.
POPCRU therefore views COSATU’s protest action as a legitimate, protected and necessary working-class intervention aimed at forcing the country to confront the social emergency unfolding before us.
*The burden on public servants has become unbearable*
For years, public servants have been expected to absorb the shocks of an economy that continues to punish the poor and reward the powerful. Workers are told to be patient while food prices rise. They are told to tighten their belts while electricity tariffs increase. They are told to be patriotic while fuel costs make travelling to work unaffordable. They are told to accept below-inflation adjustments while executives, monopolies and financial institutions continue to protect their profit margins.
This cannot continue.
Public servants are the backbone of the state. In our case, POPCRU members are found in SAPS, DCS, traffic services and related components of the Criminal Justice Cluster. They operate in overcrowded prisons, under-resourced police stations, understaffed units, unsafe workplaces and high-pressure environments. Many work long hours, face trauma, respond to life-threatening incidents, and carry the burden of a society in crisis.
Yet, when these workers return home, they are confronted by the same crisis they spend the day trying to manage in society: unemployment in their families, debt, unaffordable transport, high food prices, municipal service failures and rising medical costs.
It is for this reason that POPCRU insists that the cost-of-living crisis is also a public safety crisis. A demoralised, indebted and economically suffocated workforce cannot be expected to carry the burden of a state that is itself under pressure.
*Austerity worsens the crisis*
POPCRU further supports COSATU’s call for an end to austerity. The continued underfunding of public services has weakened the state’s capacity to deliver quality services, fill vacancies, improve infrastructure and protect workers.
In the Criminal Justice Cluster, austerity has translated into personnel shortages, deteriorating police stations, overcrowded correctional centres, inadequate tools of trade, strained wellness services, and delayed interventions in critical areas. These conditions do not only affect workers; they directly undermine service delivery and public confidence in state institutions.
The cost-of-living crisis cannot be resolved through austerity. It requires a developmental state that invests in people, strengthens public services, expands social protection, creates decent work, and ensures that the burden of economic recovery does not fall on workers and the poor.
We reject any approach that seeks to balance the books by weakening the very public services that working-class communities rely on. Budget cuts in policing, corrections, health, education, transport, local government and social services do not save the country; they deepen inequality and push communities further into desperation.
*Workers need real relief, not empty promises*
POPCRU supports COSATU’s demands for practical and urgent interventions, including the enforcement of the National Minimum Wage, progress towards a living wage, increases in social grants, the introduction of a Universal Basic Income Grant, reduction of electricity and water costs, lower fuel and food prices, an end to austerity, and expansion of the social wage.
These are not reckless demands. They are rational and necessary measures aimed at stabilising households, protecting workers, reducing poverty and preventing further social collapse.
*Government must move beyond sympathy. It must act.*
The private sector must also be held accountable. Retailers, banks, fuel companies, food producers, medical schemes and other powerful economic actors cannot continue to shift the burden of the crisis onto workers while protecting their own profits. The working class cannot be used as a shock absorber for every economic crisis.
POPCRU calls for decisive interventions to regulate excessive food pricing, reduce administered prices, address exploitative lending practices, strengthen public transport, protect consumers from unjustified tariff increases, and ensure that workers’ wages are not continuously eroded by inflation and debt.
*The Criminal Justice Cluster cannot be isolated from the economy*
There is a dangerous tendency to treat police, correctional and traffic services as if they exist outside broader society. This is a mistake. The conditions of workers in the Criminal Justice Cluster are directly linked to the broader socio-economic conditions in the country.
When poverty rises, crime rises. When unemployment deepens, social instability grows. When communities lose access to basic services, protests increase. When households are pushed into hunger and desperation, violence and social tensions escalate. When the state fails to address inequality, the burden eventually lands on the shoulders of police officers, correctional officials and traffic officers.
POPCRU therefore argues that fighting the cost-of-living crisis is also part of fighting crime, protecting communities, stabilising families and rebuilding confidence in the state.
No policing strategy can succeed in a sea of poverty. No correctional system can rehabilitate effectively in a society that produces mass unemployment and despair. No traffic system can function optimally when workers cannot afford transport and municipalities cannot maintain infrastructure.
This is why the struggle against the cost of living is not separate from the struggle for safer communities, better working conditions, and a capable developmental state.
*POPCRU calls on its members to support the working-class programme*
POPCRU calls on its structures and members, where possible and within the applicable organisational and legal frameworks, to support COSATU’s programme of action and continue raising awareness around the cost-of-living crisis in workplaces and communities.
We further call on all workers to remain disciplined, united and focused on the real issues affecting the working class. The enemy is not the poor. The enemy is not fellow workers. The enemy is the economic system that keeps millions unemployed, underpaid, indebted and dependent while wealth remains concentrated in the hands of a few.
At a time when dangerous and divisive narratives seek to misdirect the anger of workers towards vulnerable groups, POPCRU reiterates that the working class must not be divided. Workers must direct their collective energy towards structural transformation, decent work, affordable living, quality public services, and economic justice.
*Our demands*
POPCRU joins COSATU in calling for:
Urgent measures to reduce food, fuel, electricity, water and transport costs.
An end to austerity and the filling of funded vacancies in the public service.
The strengthening of collective bargaining and protection of workers’ wages.
Progress towards a living wage for all workers.
Expansion of the social wage, including quality healthcare, education, housing and public transport.
Full implementation of the National Health Insurance as part of building a fair public healthcare system.
Protection of public servants from exploitative medical aid increases and debt traps.
Decisive action against corruption, wasteful expenditure and profiteering.
Greater taxation of wealth and corporate excess instead of punishing workers and the poor.
A developmental economic programme that creates decent jobs, reduces inequality and restores dignity to working-class communities.
POPCRU stands firmly with COSATU in this national protest action. This is not a protest for narrow organisational interests; it is a protest for the survival, dignity and future of the working class.
The escalating cost of living has become a national emergency. It threatens households, workplaces, communities and the stability of the country. It demands urgent, coordinated and decisive intervention.
Workers cannot continue to carry the burden of a crisis they did not create. The poor cannot continue paying for the failures of policy, greed, corruption and austerity. Public servants cannot continue to be praised in speeches while being abandoned in practice.
*POPCRU therefore says: enough is enough.*
The struggle against the rising cost of living is a struggle for dignity. It is a struggle for decent work. It is a struggle for safe communities. It is a struggle for a capable state. It is a struggle for the working class.
An injury to one is an injury to all.
Issued by POPCRU
For more information contact Richard Mamabolo on 066 135 4349
