Defend and Extend the Public Sector
Address by GS Blade Nzimade to the 1st Triennial
Conference of SADTU,
Western Cape Province, 29 September 1999 - Mossel Bay
Introduction
Comrade Chairperson, leadership of SADTU in this province, leadership of
Alliance present and comrade delegates, as the SACP we are indeed honoured to
have been invited to your first Triennial Conference. For us this marks the
deepening of relations between the SACP and SADTU, and an expression of the
interdependence between communists and the labour movement in our country.
1.0 The ANC victory and the working class
Let me start by thanking all those of you comrades who voted for the ANC on
the 2 June 1999. The overwhelming victory of the ANC nationally is indeed an
important advance in the struggle to deepen and consolidate the national
democratic revolution. It is also important to remind ourselves that the ANC has
been returned to government principally by the workers and the poor in our
country. It is therefore proper that we should expect the ANC government to
continue with policies that are advancing the interests of the working class and
the poor.
We should also thank you comrades for the role that SADTU played in ensuring
that the ANC becomes the single largest party in the Western Cape. The fact that
we are not in government in this province should not make us lose sight of the
fact that the ANC did indeed win the election in this province though it was not
an outright majority. The fact that the ANC is neither in government nor part of
the government of the Western Cape is as a result of the political fraud
committed by the two parties of white minority privilege the NP and the DP.
These parties decided to immorally form a government that excludes the voice of
the single largest majority in this province.
The coalition government of losers does indeed pose very pertinent challenges
to our movement, not least the labour movement. In this province we need to
continually expose this immoral government highlighting the fact that it stands
for nothing else other than the continuation, albeit under new conditions, of
the interests of the white minority both in this province and nationally. The
insensitivity of this Western Cape regime is also underlined by the fact that
they have appointed as MEC for education that champion of white minority rights
who, through the Grove judgement, held the country to ransom attempting to block
the deracialisation and transformation of the education system. This means that
the struggle continues to ensure that the interests of the working people and
the poor are advanced in this province. It means deepening our work amongst the
mass of the people to ensure that transformation is taken forward despite the
arrogance, insensitivity and the racist orientation of both the NP and the DP.
2.0 Deepening racial, class and gender contestations in the current period
The above serves also to underline the deepening contestations in the current
period in South Africa. As the SACP we had always and consistently pointed out
that much as the vote is absolutely critical in advancing our goals, but that
alone is not adequate. This means that in order to advance the interests of the
working class and the poor the labour movement in particular will have to play
an increasingly central role in the deepening of the NDR. We are in a period
where the privileged sections of South African society are intensifying their
offensive against the working people, in particular organised workers, in
attempt to secure South Africa as a country principally serving the interests of
the rich and the better off.
We have characterised these struggles as an expression of the principal
strategic contradiction in South African society today. This contradiction is
that expressing itself in a struggle between, on the one hand, those forces that
stand for the most thorough transformation of South African society, not only in
the political sphere, but in the economic sphere as well. The working class, the
landless rural masses and the urban poor are at the core of these forces. On the
other hand there are those neo-liberal forces, which stand for the modernisation
of capitalism, partial deracialisation, including co-option of sections from the
previously oppressed without touching the class foundations of South African
society. In essence the latter forces stand for the retention of elements of
white privilege (under the guise of partially deracialised capitalism) and the
reproduction of unequal gender relations but under conditions where some of the
better of women become part of the new elite. In essence they stand for a
reformed colonialism of a special type, rather than its complete transformation.
In the current period, the principal strategic contradiction expresses itself
in a number of ways. Some of these include the following:
2.1 Contest over the developmental path for South Africa The contest here is
essentially between, on the one hand, those forces which argue that the path for
development for South Africa is an uncritical acceptance of the current
capitalist global realities. According to these forces all South Africa has to
do is to insert itself into this current international conjuncture, without
seeking to challenge the unequal nature of the current international economic
regime. These forces also seek to direct South Africa on a path of
privatisation, liberalisation, and retrenchments, smashing of the labour
movement and the casualisation of labour as the foundation upon which the South
African economy has to be built. The reality is that they are arguing for a
developmental path that, even according to its high priests in the World Bank
and the IMF, has failed dismally to develop the economies of developing
countries.
On the other hand, the working class and the poor are struggling for a
developmental path that prioritises the role of the state in development, the
extension of the public sector in service provision and a state principally
representing the interests of the working people and the poor. The very first
five years of democratic government in our country has proved that it is the
state that must play a leading role in development in order to meet the basic
needs of the majority of the people in our country. It is the state, and not the
private sector that has realised the provision of electricity, clean water,
primary health care and education for the millions of the poor people in our
country. This is an important lesson that we must build upon in the next five
years. The biggest challenge for the working class in the current period is to
roll back the capitalist market from the provision of basic social services and
ensure that the public sector becomes the mainstay of our economy.
2.2 Ideological attacks on the working class
This period is also characterised by intensified attacks on the working
class, in particular on organised workers. The first and most sinister type of
attack is that of counterpoising the interests of organised workers as
necessarily being against the interests of the unemployed and the poor. As part
of this attack all sorts of forces have all of a sudden become the champions
of the poor, essentially as a means not to advance the interests of the poor but
to attack the working class and organised workers in particular. It needs to be
said that the struggle of employed workers, the landless rural masses and the
poor is essentially the same struggle. It is a struggle against poverty. A
struggle by organised workers against retrenchments and casualisation is
essentially a struggle to defend workers only means of livelihood jobs!
The struggle of farmworkers and landless rural masses is a struggle for access
to productive land as a means to make a living. The struggle of the urban poor
is a struggle to find meaningful employment in order to make ends meet. An
important challenge therefore for the SACP, the labour movement and the poor is
to weld these struggles together for sustainable means of livelihood.
The other ideological attack on organised workers is that they are a spoilt
elite that is only interested in its own narrow economistic self-interest. This
is the worst insult that can be heaped on organised workers of this country.
Without the sustained struggles and sacrifices of organised workers in fighting
apartheid there would be no democracy today. It is these very same organised
workers who have to sustain their unemployed relatives who are unable to make
ends meet because of the absence of a comprehensive social security system. In
fact what are called wages in South Africa are nothing but workers earnings
plus provision for social security, health, education and general social
provision for the unemployed relatives.
Related to this is the rather new claim, even by some of our own comrades,
that working class interests represent only the sectional interests of South
African society. Organised workers are being relegated to a small sect, despite
the fact that they are in fact the leading detachment of the working class. Such
accusations directly play into the hands of the very same bosses which want to
smash and weaken the labour movement and it must be vigorously challenged from
whatever quarter it emanates from.
2.3 Job losses and apartheid-type labour practices
South Africa is currently going through one of the massive job losses in its
recent history. We have called this a job-loss blood bath precisely because
there is an intensification of placing profits before people. As the SACP we
have called on the urgent convening of sectoral summits aimed at reversing this
bloodbath and set our economy on a path of job creation, job security and job
retention. These retrenchments are a direct attack on the labour movement and
the living standards of the working class in South Africa.
Even more disturbing is the re-emergence of a tendency from some employers to
want to revert back to some of the worst forms of apartheid-type labour
practices, including lock-outs and unilateral restructuring. It is as if now
that we have a democratic and legitimate government, this can be used to launch
fresh attacks on organised workers. This is nothing but an attempt to turn the
victory of the working people and the poor into a victory for a minority elite,
at the direct expense of the working class. The SACP is committed to fighting
these practices in the same way as we fought against them during the apartheid
era. The dawn of democracy in our country, brought about by the extreme
sacrifices made by the working class, cannot be allowed to be turned into an
instrument for the benefit of a small elite, no matter how non-racial or
non-sexist the composition of that elite may be.
3.0 The challenges facing the working class and the Alliance
There are a number of challenges facing the working class and the Alliance in
the current period in the light of the picture sketched above:
3.1 The resolution of the public sector wage dispute
As the SACP we are deeply concerned about the manner in which the current
public sector wage dispute is proceeding. Our last Central Committee in July
called for the parties to the dispute to negotiate until they reach an
agreement. We reiterate this call and urge parties to return to the negotiating
table, as failure to do this will place in danger the entire programme of public
sector transformation. Public sector unions need the ANC government to advance
its own interests, just as government needs COSATU public sector unions to
advance the goals of state transformation and social delivery. Furthermore,
there is no contradiction between service delivery and a living wage. Any
attempt to oppose the two results in the fetishisation of service delivery as if
it can be separated from the existence of committed corps of policemen and
women, teachers, nurses and clerks who are paid a living wage.
3.2 Harnessing sectoral struggles into the overall objectives of the
revolution as a whole
One of the key challenges of the Alliance, particularly its leadership, is to
weld together legitimate sectoral struggles with the overall struggle to deepen
and consolidation the national democratic revolution. It would be wrong to
castigate, as a matter of routine, sectoral struggles as necessarily undermining
the goals of the NDR as a whole. Just as it would be wrong to project each and
every sectoral struggle as necessarily revolutionary. But at the same time it
would be wrong to project the overall goal of the revolution as being above and
separated or distracted by legitimate sectoral aspirations and interests. For
instance, the SACP is strongly of the view that the Alliance leadership should
desist from using platforms of unions or other sectoral formations as places to
go out and lecture these formations like schoolchildren. This is
counter-productive and makes us to fail to effectively harness these sectoral
struggles into a unified struggle to deepen transformation.
We dare not forget that the victory over apartheid was achieved through
harnessing the creativity of the mass of our people, whether it is in the
Self-Defence Units, street committees or PTSAs. Similarly the struggle for
transformation and a better life for all will be realised through harnessing the
energies of our people in their sectoral formations. This is the kind of
leadership that is required; otherwise we run the danger of abstracting the
overall objectives of the national democratic revolution from mass and sectoral
struggles of our people. Any revolution is a combination of leadership and the
creative expressions of our people.
3.3 The struggle for a national democratic, developmental state
As the SACP we are firmly committed to a struggle to defend and extend the
public sector as the most crucial weapon the transformation of South African
society. Firstly, this means that we are against the notions of a lean and mean
state for its own sake without measuring this against the objectives of our
developmental programmes. Secondly, we are strongly of the view that public
enterprises are not there to be sold off to private capital, nor as instruments
to nurture a black bourgeoisie. These entities should be defended and
strengthened as instruments for social delivery and they should by and large be
kept in the hands of the state. For this reason we are calling for an audit of
these public enterprises, their existing and potential role in social and
economic development, in order to strengthen them for the implementation of the
RDP. This is part of the developmental state that we are calling for.
4.0 The challenges for SADTU
4.1 Build a strong united SADTU and COSATU
The most important task facing teachers now is to build a strong SADTU. Part
of this struggle is to effectively weld trade unionism and professionalism and
not the artificial separation of the two, whilst at the same time not losing
sight of the distinct features of each. But at the same time there can be no
strong SADTU without a strong COSATU. The challenges of the current period call
for an even stronger federation
4.2 Taking a lead in the culture of learning, teaching and service
SADTU needs to concretely come up with a campaign to enhance the culture of
learning and teaching in our schools and colleges. We do not share the view that
SADTU is pursuing a wrong kind of trade unionism, nor the fact that most of
SADTU members are lazy. It is therefore important to urgently implement your own
resolution of weeding out lazy elements and take a lead in COLTS.
However a key component of this task is not just to teach, but also to teach
a curriculum that is characterised by humane and caring values and to challenge
the barbarism and capitalist ideology in the classroom. Socialist ideas and
thinking should also be firmly part of the curriculum and syllabi.
4.3 Building a strong SACP the workers vanguard
The SACP has dubbed October 1999 as the Red October. We have jointly embarked
on this campaign with COSATU in order to recruit for the SACP amongst organised
workers and increase COSATU membership as well. We call upon SADTU in this
province to be part of this campaign and ensure that we also establish SACP
workplace units in educational institutions as well. These units are important
for building the political understanding and confidence of the workers in order
to lead the NDR and lay strong foundations for socialism. The Red October
Campaign will be underpinned by our commitment to struggle against job losses,
to fight for womens emancipation in the workplace and the home, to defend and
extend the public sector and to spread awareness about the HIV/AIDS pandemic and
the struggle for cheap drugs.
We are also using this campaign to intensify the debit order campaign and
call upon you to assist in funding the SACP so that it truly becomes the
independent political vanguard of the working class.
With these words we wish you a successful conference!
Issued by: SACP Dept. of Information & Publicity
E-Mail: sacp1@wn.apc.org
