There are exactly 30 days to the 2010 FIFA World Cup and instead of making a noise with our customary vuvuzelas we are pouring rubbish and litter onto our streets and setting trains alight. Somehow I doubt that millions of potential foreign World Cup fans will interpret this as our enthusiasm for the world's biggest sporting spectacle.

And, if Cosatu's threats are anything to go by, the strike action won't end here. The trade union federation has committed itself to mass mobilisation on the eve of the World Cup over Nersa granting Eskom a 24.8 percent electricity hike. It has applied to Nedlac for permission to participate in mass strike action.

"We can't stop rolling mass action because of the World Cup," Cosatu's general-secretary Zwelenzima Vavi said. The need to protect the 250 000 jobs which could be lost because of the electricity increase was "bigger than the World Cup," he said.

Cost of vandalism

In 2009, Cosatu's mineworker strike cost the South African economy an estimated R2-billion per day, while the doctors' strike during the same year cost the Department of Health at least R10-million per day. These costs do not include the damage striking members cause to people's private properties through violence and vandalism.

In 2007, the SARB's Quarterly Bulletin showed that national strikes hit an all-time high, costing the South African economy 11.5 million working days in the first six months of that year, surpassing the full-year record of nine million days, set in 1987.

Fresh out of the claws of the recession, South Africa's fragile economy will receive a much-needed boost from the potential cash injection that World Cup fans will bring. But some basic services such as transport, hospitality and the staffing and maintenance of sporting venues will come under threat if unions proceed with strike action.

SA an unfit host

Striking is a legal and legitimate way for workers to dispute issues with management, provided no lives are threatened. But the amount of violence that usually accompanies strikes will aid doomsayers who want to paint this country ? and this continent ? as unfit hosts of tournaments of this magnitude.

The question we should be asking is: what is the government's role in all this striking mayhem? Has government done anything to prevent foreigners from thinking that this country is a striker's paradise? Has anything been done to dissuade outsiders from thinking that the country is being held to ransom at the mercy of furious unions? Have any contingency plans been put in place should Cosatu get a thumbs up to go ahead with its strike come World Cup eve? The Department of Labour seems to be shrugging its shoulders nonchalantly.

Partaking in strike action is every South African's constitutional right; however, where do you draw the line between your human right and your national pride? I think unions should take into account the small fact that their right to demonstrate their rights will come at the worst possible time as this country glows under the brightest international spotlight this continent has ever seen.

Do you think South Africans should be allowed to strike regardless of the World Cup? Leave your comments below.