June 6 2015 at 03:14pm
By Jeremy Cronin Comment on this story
Members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) have embarked on strike at Twickenham Mine in Burgersfort in Limpopo province. Photo: David Ritchie
Workers face unprecedented pressure, which is why their militant independence is so important, writes Jeremy Cronin.
Over the past three years, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has been the target of an unprecedented attack.
Of course, the story of progressive unionism in a capitalist society is always the story of struggle. The relationship between capitalist bosses and workers may (at certain times) be relatively civilised, at other times aggressively hostile.
But even in the best of times, the class interests of the bosses and the class interests of workers stand in fundamental contradiction to each other. For the bosses, priority number one is always private profits for themselves, "maximising share-holder value" as they call it.
All other considerations are secondary - job creation, a living wage, health and safety, the social conditions of workers and their families, even whether to invest or not to invest - all of these are secondary considerations. But over the past few years the offensive against NUM has acquired a new intensity.
The attack on NUM and its more than 230 000 members has come from several angles at once.
We expect the bosses to attack NUM. We expect (this from) the capitalist media.
You will remember how at the height of the Marikana tragedy they tried to present the issues as a simple inter-union rivalry. This was almost exactly the same strategy used by the apartheid regime in the early 1990s. When they launched askaris against townships, they called it "black on black violence".
When white policemen in Casspirs escorted assegai and panga-wielding IFP hostel-dwellers into Boipatong informal settlement on a killing spree, they told us it was "black on black violence".
So we shouldn't be surprised if the same bourgeois media and the same mining houses in 2012 were happy to present the tragedy unfolding on the platinum belt as if it were just "union on union", "worker on worker" violence.
We shouldn't be surprised that NUM has been singled out as the key target for a massive class offensive.
Since 1994 South African monopoly capital has successfully undermined many of the important legislative gains won after a bitter struggle by the progressive trade union movement.
(It) didn't fold its arms as we introduced the Labour Relations Act, or the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, and much more.
Monopoly capital responded aggressively by restructuring the workplace and segmenting the working class. Disinvestment, capital flight, increasing mechanisation, and above all informalisation, casualisation, and the massive expansion of labour brokering. All of these measures by monopoly capital were, and are, designed to undercut the advances made.
And make no mistake - this counter-offensive by monopoly against our new democratic dispensation has had a devastating impact on the union movement.
But the multi-pronged attack on NUM and its members has also come from other quarters - from the leadership of unions that were, or are, meant to be allies, fraternal affiliates within the same federation. Of course there have always been rivalries, often healthy rivalries between what were the two largest industrial unions in Cosatu - NUM and Numsa. But in the last few years, a leadership clique within Numsa has turned one of the great working class slogans on its head.
"An injury to one is an injury to all" has become "An injury to NUM is an opportunistic chance for (Irvin) Jim". Let's not blame the rank-and-file members of Numsa. Let's not blame many Numsa shop stewards and worker leaders who are not part of the current Numsa leadership clique. But let us expose rank opportunism where it exists.
How did the Numsa leadership clique react to the unfolding tragedy on the platinum belt around Marikana in August 2012?
In the days before August 16 when there was a reign of terror in the informal settlements and townships, when armed thugs were killing NUM shop stewards, members and their families, when wearing a red skipper could be a death sentence, they said nothing.
How did the Numsa leadership clique react to the attempted armed storming of NUM offices? Nothing was said.
In the days and months after April 16 2012, as the killings of NUM organisers and members continued, the Numsa leadership clique said nothing by way of a condemnation of the violence. Instead, the Numsa leadership clique (along with Julius Malema's rabble army) continued to actively flirt with Amcu.
What is Amcu? The SACP has characterised it as essentially vigilante unionism. In the early 2000s there was a similar offensive launched against NUM - the Five Madoda. It had its origins among networks in the informal settlements around the mines, networks controlled by shack lords, taxi-bosses and anti-stock theft vigilante groups brought in from rural Eastern Cape and KZN. These networks were then mobilised to launch an offensive on NUM membership.
To its great credit NUM has acknowledged that challenges and weaknesses within the union have also provided gaps for the anti-NUM offensive. That is why the theme of this congress, Back to Basics, Membership First! is so relevant.
Have the gains that we have scored since 1994 made us complacent? Too reliant on centralised bargaining? Too reliant on automatic debit order deductions rather than daily contact with our membership?
As we develop a counter-offensive to the unceasing attacks on our union movement by monopoly capital, we also need to look beyond the workplace to the communities in which workers live.
Housing for mine workers - one of the important victories of NUM, supported by the ANC-led government after 1994 - was the abolition of the terrible single-sex hostels that had prevailed for 100 years in South African mining. However, we should also not forget that one of the great achievements of NUM in the 1980s was to transform the hostels into bases of working class power. But this is where the mining houses, local government, local traditional leaders and the national government have let mine workers down.
Affordable housing, different family accommodation, viable mining communities with clinics, crèches, schools, parks and public transport… very little of this has been delivered to replace the old hostels.
Many workers have used the living-out allowance as a remittance to rural families back at home. Instead, they erect a shack in a squatter camp, and pay for a second wife, a second TV, a second fridge.
This is the world in which mashonisas and shack lords flourish.
How does NUM organise in these spaces? It's not impossible, but it's very difficult. This is the terrain in which anti-NUM opportunists gained some control.
We must also actively campaign to transform migrant labour.
In other mining countries, (migrant) workers live in comfortable hostels and return home; typically they are flown back every few months for a long break.
This way they save money and retain their family ties.
Those of us in the SACP, those of us in government, don't expect NUM or Cosatu to be sweethearts of the executive. We don't want unions that are timid labour desks of the ANC. We want independent, militant trade unions that understand the success of working class struggles in South Africa is deeply bound up with a national democratic struggle, and an NDR is centrally about democratic national sovereignty.
*This is an edited version of a speech that Jeremy Cronin, first deputy general secretary of the SACP, gave at NUM's 15th national congress this week
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
Pretoria News
http://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/num-a-target-of-unprecedented-attacks-1.1868457#.Vl69qbShd7I