16 September 1999
Introduction
On behalf of the SACP we wish to congratulate you on the tenth anniversary of the founding of SACTWU. It is indeed an appropriate occasion for you to celebrate ten years of proud struggle in defence and advancement of workers’ rights, as well as your participation in the overall struggles for liberation, democracy, freedom and socialism in our country. I am sure looking back over the last ten to twenty years, SACTWU, and its predecessors, have made an enormous contribution in fighting for the improvement of working conditions of what was once one of the most exploitative and oppressive sectors of South African industries. On behalf of the Central Committee and the entire membership of the SACP we wish you well, and many more decades of proud revolutionary struggle of deepening the national democratic revolution and the struggle for socialism. I also bring warm, fraternal and revolutionary greetings from South Africa’s communists!
1.0 The working class and the ANC’s electoral victory
It is indeed also proper to thank those of you who voted the ANC overwhelmingly back to government on 2 June this year. Also to thank SACTWU and its structures and the contribution they made in this regard. Indeed we can truly say that this government is a government voted by the workers and the poor, and you should rightly expect that it continues pursuing policies that are friendly to the working class and the poor.
Indeed, there are still major struggles that lie ahead in order to ensure that South Africa truly becomes a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic country whose primary feature would be an increasing standard of living for all its people, particularly the previously oppressed black majority. As the SACP, we characterise the current period as one reflecting a struggle between those forces representing the working class and the poor, principally black and women, who seek the most thorough transformation of South African society and the effective addressing of the legacies of class, race and gender. On the other hand stand those forces who seek to preserve and partially deracialise the capitalist character of South African society, and pursue a neo-liberal agenda that merely seek to insert South Africa into a globalised imperialist system, without challenging the class foundations of our society.
Our conception of the key political challenge of the present period is that much as the legacy of racial oppression remains the most immediate and prominent feature of the apartheid legacies, this legacy cannot be overcome outside of tackling the class and gender legacies of apartheid colonialism. We say this because the very racial structure of apartheid South Africa was built and premised on the superexploitation of the black working class, with black women occupying the lowest rung in the economic system. It order therefore to tackle the principal strategic contradiction highlighted above in favour of the overwhelming majority of the people, the working class should seek to lead the national democratic revolution and openly struggle and advocate for the tackling of the problems facing the working class and the poor, as the key challenge for this period.
What the above mean is that concepts like black economic empowerment, transformation and redress, should in the first instance be referring to the empowerment of ordinary working people and the poor, rather than the creation and manufacture of a black elite. Much as it is inevitable that a black elite will be created in this period, and in principle there is nothing wrong with that, however this should not be the principal strategic task of the period.
We are raising these matters because clearly, part of the contestations in the current period involve interpretations of transformation and economic empowerment that seek to place the creation of an elite as the most important priority. There are some who are trying to interpret the massive victory of the ANC – voted by the working class and the poor – as meaning a mandate to smash the workers, accelerate the creation of a small elite to the exclusion of the working class, and goading government to be tough with trade unions. We are seeing this right in front of our eyes with the current workers’ struggles both in the public and private sector. We need to make it loud and clear that without the working class as the leading component of the struggles in this period, there will be no meaningful transformation, there will be no better life for all, and there will be no genuinely free and democratic South Africa. The challenge is to mobilise and build the political capacity of the working class play this leading role. For us as the SACP you should be seeing your Congress today within this broader strategic framework and objectives.
2.0 Deepening class contestations in the current period
As part of the struggles highlighted above, and perhaps the various manifestation of the principal strategic contradiction, there are deepening class contestations over the kind of society we are building. This is manifested by some of the most vicious ideological and other attacks on the working class, particularly organised workers in the current period. Some of these include the following:
2.1 One of the most disturbing developments in the current period is that of attempting to pose the developmental challenge for South Africa as that which requires the smashing of the labour movement. This is also being manifested by disturbing tendencies for some to want to return to some of the most repressive employer practices during apartheid labour relations. For instance the threatened lock-outs by some employers are attempts to return us to some of the most viciously fought practices under apartheid. As we speak today thousands of workers were butchered and murdered by the apartheid regime, precisely fighting against these very same practices that some of the employers want to revert to today. One might as well ask where were these people when workers of this country laid down their lives to bring about this democratic South Africa. It is time that any attempt to use these progressive labour laws, or any loopholes in them, to take us back must be fought with all the power that South Africa’s workers have.
2.2 Related to the above development is perhaps a broader attempt to try and turn South Africa’s democratic victory into a victory for a small elite, who see in the working class an obstacle to the accumulation of wealth and pursuance of a neo-liberal agenda. Workers should not allow the fruits of their very own sacrificed to be taken away in a manner that seeks to exclude the workers in change, defining them as a nuisance and a spoilt labour elite. As part of the working class struggle we should consistently expose and challenge such tendencies, whether they come of the ranks of the previous oppressor or exploiter or even when it rears its head even within our own ranks.
2.3 The other form of attack on organised workers in particular, is an attempt to project workers’ struggles as being selfish, self-centred and against the interests of the unemployed and the poor. This is an attempt to create divisions between the working class and the poor, through what is clearly a lie. The struggles against retrenchments, and the struggle for a job and a piece of land to cultivate is all but one struggle – a struggle against poverty and a struggle for a better life for all.
2.4 Part of the ideological offensive of the neo-liberal agenda is that of seeking to say it is only organised workers who must make sacrifices for this country to develop. Government has dropped company tax by five percent in this year’s budget, but there is no indication whatsoever that companies are reinvesting any of this reprieve in job creation. In fact South African employers continue with what is essentially an investment strike. Yet workers are expected to accept retrenchments, casualisation, outsourcing, privatisation, liberalisation ostensibly under the guise that this is to their benefit and they can hope for some employment in the near future. Yes, sacrifices have to be made to develop our country, but let these sacrifices be shared by all in society, not least the bosses themselves!
2.5 Job losses – which we refer to as a bloodbath – remains one of the most serious problems and attacks on South Africa’s working class and the poor. As the SACP we call for drastic measures and steps to be taken to halt this slide and turn our economy into a job-creating rather than a job shedding economy. For instance, if our tariff structure is responsible for job losses in the textile, leather and clothing industry, then it should be urgently reviewed. It is for this reason that as the SACP we have called for urgent convening of sectoral job summits precisely to discuss these questions. We hope SACTWU will play a leading role in ensuring that this happens, just like the NUM played a leading role in the establishment of a Gold Crisis Committee.
2.6 Related to this question is the SACP’s concern that the clothing and textile sector in our country is faced with enormous problems and is a threatened sector. It is sector threatened by illegal importation of clothes, shoes and other goods. It is a sector threatened by the entire process of globalisation and reduction of labour. Part of the discussions in a sectoral summit will have to deal with a thorough discussion of the future of this industry and how it can be protected for the sake of our economy and for the sake of our people. That is why as the SACP we have also been consistently arguing for the development of an active industrial strategy for our country, systematically looking at all the key sectors of our economy.
3.0 Challenges facing the working class in the current period and beyond
3.1 Our point of departure and that of South Africa’s workers is that ours is a struggle for socialism. It is struggle for substantive freedom, democracy, equality and the socialisation of the predominant sector of the economy such that it is in the hands of the producers themselves. Part of the challenge in the current period is precisely to turn around these attacks on the working class and the struggles against job losses into a sustained struggle to deepen democracy and lay a strong foundation for socialism. Many of those who today say are not sure what we mean by socialism, precisely know what we mean, it might as well be that socialism is not an option for them.
3.2 The challenge of welding together the different sectoral and localised workers’ struggles into a sustained national class struggle. Much more importantly to weld all these together with the struggles of the unemployed, the urban poor and the landless rural masses into a struggle against poverty.
3.3 It is the task and duty for revolutionary trade unions not to retreat into narrow workerism when faced with these difficult period, but to firmly locate their struggles within the broader struggles for deepening the NDR and a struggle for a humane, caring system. But it is not the task of a revolutionary trade union movement to stop militant struggles to genuinely represent the legitimate interests of its members, under the guise that such actions undermine the broader revolutionary objective. This would kill the labour movement, and would threaten our very democracy that we have fought so hard to attain. To be a revolutionary trade union movement means faithful representation of workers’ interests, challenging an attempt to return to apartheid type labour practices and seek to strengthen the political capacity of the working class as a whole.
3.4 Building strong affiliates and a strong COSATU. AN INJURY TO ONE IS AN INJURY TO ALL
3.5 Deepen international worker and working class solidarity. Some of these actions have already paid off eg. IMF gold sales and US government in relation to pharmaceutical companies. We hope that you will be able to discuss some of these key issues and challenges in this Congress. With these words we wish you a successful Congress, and we are certain that a stonger SACTWU will emerge out of here.
Thanks
Issued by: SACP Dept. of Information & Publicity