28 June 1999
By: Dr. Blade Nzimande SACP General Secretary
1. Introduction
The SACP is particularly honoured to be part of your very important
NationalCongress. To us such congresses are very important because they
are like the parliament of the workers, where important debates and decisions
are taken in order to consolidate gains made by workers and map away
forward.
For the SACP it is always a pleasure to be part of workers' congresses
since it is organised workers who are the leading detachment of the working
class. It is only the working class that can lead the national democratic
revolution to its logical conclusion, the total liberation ofthe mass
of our people and a transition to socialism. I hope that in your deliberations
you must bear in mind the political responsibilities on the shoulders of
organised workers in the current period and beyond. It is for this reason
that I am here and bring fratemal and revolutionary greetings to you from
the Central Committee and the entire membership of the SACP.
2. The meaning and challenge of the ANC'S electoral victory for workers and the working class
Let me start by thanking all those workers who cast their vote for the
ANC in our second democratic elections. Let me also thank the role played
by the leadership and membership of CWU in ensuring that the ANC is returned
to
government with an even bigger majority.
The overwhelming victory of the ANC in the last elections, winning 66% of the vote nationally, with huge majorities in 7 provinces, is another historic development in the consolidation of the gains of the 1994 democratic breakthrough. Of particular significance is the fact that it is working class, the landless rural masses and the poor who have voted the ANC back into power. But there were also very significant gains made by the ANC from the Coloured and Indian communities.
As the SACP we had specifically mobilised workers to vote for the ANC in order to accelerated worker-friendly change. For us as the SACP the significance of this victory is that it is through an ANC-led government that more spaces could be created to further advance the interests of the working class. When we called upon you as workers to vote for the ANC, we were not asking you to give an ANC government a blank cheque. We were saying vote for the ANC because of its record in struggle and government, and that it will continue to accelerate change that benefit the workers of this country. Therefore as workers you should expect the continuation of change that is of benefit to the working class as a whole.
Other significant developments in the elections were that the NP lost significant votes and was replaced by the DP as the official opposition. We welcome this blow to the NP as it is a party that must die, as it belongs to the past era and was responsible for some of the most brutal policies and actions against workers and the majority of the people of our country.
However, the reality is that it is the DP, which has now become the main representative of white right wing politics and aspirations. Its "fight back" campaign was essentially a mobilisation of white fears and racist feelings against the transformation process and the creation of a better life for all. The DP has positioned itself not only as a reactionary and backward party, but also as the leading anti-worker and anti-poor formation in South Africa today.
However, all the opposition parties have distinguished themselves by opposing worker-friendly policies. Another development is that now a party like the MM is increasingly taking up the war against organised workers in the same way that the IFP and UWUSA have been doing all these years. As the SACP we are concerned that these parties, that project themselves as champions of the poor, are targeting to destabilise COSATU unions and organised workers in a manner that can only benefit the bosses and white reactionaries. It is therefore of utmost importance that you as organised workers play an even bigger role than before in building the SACP as the political vanguard and defender of the interests of workers. I shall return to this question later
However, in as much as this electoral victory creates space to further shift the balance of forces in favour of the working class, the landless rural masses and the poor, this will not happen on its own. The electoral victory is but a platform, albeit important, to advance the struggles of workers and the poor. This is because the very direction and content of South Africa's revolution is heavily contested. The deeper we move into the transition the more the class struggle is intensifying. On the one hand there are those forces, of which the working class is its core, which stand for the most thorough transformation of South African society, and, on the other hand, those forces that seek limited changes and the creation of a non-racial capitalist South Africa benefiting only an elite. This therefore means that the election results are simultaneously a victory and a challenge.
The first and most critical challenge is to ensure that the very forces that voted for the ANC in their millions - the working class, the urban and rural poor - should be mobilised to be at the centre of the transformation process itself. This makes the SACP'S slogan of building people's power as a defence and deepening of the NOR is even more relevant in this period. For the SACP this primarily means building the political confidence and capacity of the working class to play a leading role in the transformation struggles. It means giving concrete class content to the very process of accelerating change. This is because the deepening of the NOR means tackling simultaneously the class, racial and genders legacy of apartheid colonialism.
One of the key challenges we face in this period is to learn and defend the most important lesson of the first five years of the ANC government. The delivery of electricity, water, houses, telephones and clinics to millions of our people has been brought about not by privatised entities or through privatisation, but by an aggressive state-led development programme. This state-led developmental effort has been underpinned by the participation of our people through ANC and SACP structures, trade union structures and thousands of community development committees. The lesson is that it is only a people-driven, state-led programme that will deliver social development.
Where privatisation has occurred we have, on the whole, only witnessed a one-way street of job losses and unaffordable services. Furthermore privatisation has threatened to erode social gains made through a state-led and people driven development. We challenge all those, both inside and outside our movement, who say privatisation is the solution to our problems to tell us of one example over the last five years where privatisation or privatised entities have led to the significant upliftment of our people.
This then points to what is perhaps one of the major struggles facing the working class in the period ahead. That is the intensification of the struggle to build the capacity of the state, at all levels, to undertake social development beneficial to the mass of our people, and fight the tendency toward market-driven development. This struggle needs to be underpinned and reinforced by a sustained ideological critique of economic fundamentalism and dogma of privatisation, liberalisation and cut back on social spending. As the SACP we reiterate our strong opposition to privatisation. We need to expose the false nature of arguments about the benefits of privatisation, whether it is sold to us using sophisticated words like, "restructuring", "outsourcing","economic empowerment" and defining communities as "clients" and "consumers". This is a dangerous discourse, which flies in the face of the RDP as a people-driven programme, made up of active recipients rather than consumers". Behind this language discourse lies a cynical neo-liberal agenda that threatens to roll back the gains made thus far.
Of much more significance is the fact that in many instances it is workers who are supposed to be retrenched in these parastatals whilst at the same time retaining the predominantly white, and sometimes inefficient, management. If there is to be any restructuring of these state enterprises for instance, the starting point should be the deracialisation of the top managerial structures of these institutions and eradicate inefficiency at these levels. In a number of instances workers are blamed for inefficiencies and be retrenched when in fact the loss made by some of these institutions is due to the wasteful of management drawn from the old order who do not understand the social and economic priorities of the new democratic order.
At this stage, it is important to clarify, contrary to what our detractors
say, that we are not blind to the reality of the existence of a large private
sector whose resources has to be harnessed towards our development effort.
Therefore it is necessary to engage strategically in public-private partnerships.
But for us as the SACP such public-private partnerships should be characterised
by the following features:
This means that we should at the same time challenge and struggle against
notions that the private sector is more efficient and the public sector
is by its nature inefficient. Whilst we have indeed inherited an inefficient
apartheid state, our first task is to redeploy and retrain public workers
rather than take the route of retrenchments in the first instance. If the
private sector is said to be capable to train efficient workers, what is
impossible for the state to embark on a massive human resources development
programme? In any case, for a country like South Africa, human resources
development should be a strategic priority and a necessity for accelerating
change.
3. Challenges facing workers in the current period
Workers in general, and organised workers in particular, are facing one of the most difficult periods in the history of international capitalism and in our country in particular. These include the following:
3. I There are unacceptably high levels of retrenchments, thus increasing the already very high levels of unemployment. This is a matter that requires a focused and systematic campaign by organised workers. This is further reinforced by the fact that it is relatively very easy to retrench workers in this country. It is for this reason that the SACP supports the demand of organised labour for the LRA to be amended so that retrenchments are subjected to collective bargaining process
3.2 There is an intensified ideological attack on organised workers, COSATU in particular, as a labour elite. Organised workers are being demonised by the bosses and the mainstream media as being responsible for unemployment and the very retrenchments they are victims of on the grounds that they demand too much
3.3 Related to this attack are the claims that South Africa's labour
market is too rigid and therefore a chorus of calls for flexibility. This
is one of the most dangerous attacks on the working class. But when the
bosses and the media are challenged on where is this labour market flexible
they are unable to say. ILO studies have consistently shown that South
Africa's labour market is already flexible. The call behind labour market
flexibility is in fact a disguised call for the erosion of worker rights
that South Africa's working class has fought so hard for. When one examines
the complaints of labour market rigidity, it is to laws like Basic Conditions
of Employment Act, the LRA Skills Development Act, and the Employment Equity
Act that the attack is directed. In other words a call for labour market
flexibility is a call for the re-establishment of the labour dispensation
of the apartheid
regime, tinkered with some changes to the racial structure of the labour
market.
3.4 Globalisation - the dominance of private capital throughout the whole world - also represents and attack on workers and the working class as a whole. There is no arena where globalisation manifests itself than that of communications. It is for this reason that international working class solidarity still remains as relevant as ever.
3.5 Of course another major attack on the working class is the religious-like belief in privatisation whose main outcome is the loss of job and the creation of a society that is driven by the profit motive instead of meeting basic social needs.
3.6 Another attack on workers is the tendency towards turning permanent workers into casual and contract workers, leading to the erosion of their benefits as permanent workers - pensions, medical aid and other benefits
3.7 The high interest rates, bank charges and the exorbitant fees charged by micro-lenders all are an attack on ordinary working people and erode the very minimal wages earned by workers. As the SACP we are calling upon a joint campaign between workers and SACP to challenge these scourges.
3.8 All the above has led to an intense attack on workers and the working
class as a whole. Now is the time for organised workers to stand and challenge
these as part of challenging the very capitalist character of South African
society. I am here today to say that the SACP fully stands behind organised
workers to overcome these attacks and defend the gains of workers. The
main message that the SACP is bringing to you is that it is only the working
class, and only the working class, that can best advance
its own interests. It is time now that workers take their own future
into their own hands.
3.9 However, a particular challenge to you as communication workers
is to ensure that the means of communication in this country are not allowed
to only spread capitalist propaganda. You need to ensure that what is communicated
to the broader South African public also reflect the interests and aspirations
of the working class, including the communication of socialist ideas. This
means that we should educate ourselves about socialism in order to ensure
that it gradually becomes the hegemonic mode of thinking of the majority
of our people. In particular we need to ensure that the public broadcaster
must also reflect the socialist ideas and aspirations of the working class.
This is one of the key challenges of the period, and the SACP is ready
to work side by side with you to ensure that this goal is achieved.
4. The key strategic challenge to the working class: The struggle for socialism
The ultimate strategic objective of the working class is build socialism in South Africa. The struggles outlined above have to be waged within the context of this overall objective. But what do we mean by socialism?
Our cynics, detractors and those, who are either opposed to socialism or have abandoned socialism, now ask us what do we mean by socialism. It is as if they do not know or never knew what socialism is. By socialism we simply mean a society who primary objective is the meeting of the social needs of the majority of the population rather than driven by a profit motive. It is a society where the control of the predominant means of production is in the hands of the producers, the workers.
The struggle for working class leadership over society, the building of people's power, the struggle against patronage, the struggle against privatisation, the deepening of a people-driven democracy and development are all important foundations for socialism. The shortest route to socialism is the struggle to defend and deepen a working class led national democratic revolution.
To reach this goal the SACP'S programme commits itself in the first instance to root the Communist Party amongst organised workers. This means that organised workers themselves must take a direct and active interest in building SACP industrial units and branches. Furthermore, the SACP has embarked on a programme of joint political schools with the affiliates of COSATU in order to build the political consciousness of the working class
Related to this objective, is the need to build a strong and progressive
COSATU rooted amongst workers. One of the most important events in the
labour movement is the forthcoming COSATU special congress in August. That
Congress, the ultimate parliament of South Africa's organised workers,
will call upon you as workers to strengthen a revolutionary COSATU that
is
strategically positioned to take the struggle of the workers into the
next millennium. As part of this you will be called upon to elect a new
leadership that is grounded in the politics of the working class and able
to position organised workers as the leading detachment of the working
class. When you elect the new COSATU leadership in August you must bear
in mind that without a strong federation there will be no Communication
Workers' Union. Without a strong COSATU no single COSATU affiliate will
be able to win its battles. This means that whilst rooted in the struggles
of workers in the communications sector you must at the same time be able
to rise above sectoral struggles. ,
The last and most important message we want to leave with you is that
unless you build the SACP as the political vanguard of the working class,
the very gains you have made are threatened. It is for this reason that
we also ask every CWU worker to sign the SACP debit order form and make
at least a RI 0-00 monthly contribution to the SACP. It is only workers
who can support
and build a strong and financially independent SACP. Let us all during
this Congress sign the SACP debit order form.
With these words we wish you a successful Congress, and we are confident that you are going to rise to the occasion and build a strong Communication Workers' Union.
Thank you.
Blade Nzimande
General Secretary, South African Communist Party