Address to the NUMSA Congress, Mafikeng

Building working class power for fundamental transformation and socialism in the era of globalisation

24 August 2000

Comrade President, General Secretary, the NUMSA NEC, the leadership of our Alliance, invited international and local guests and comrade delegates. Let me take this opportunity, on behalf of the Central Committee (CC) and the entire membership of the South African Communist Party (SACP) to bring warm revolutionary and solidarity greetings to your Congress.

Cde President, I wish to dedicate this speech to the memory of Cde Mbuyiselo Ngwenda, the late General Secretary of NUMSA and to all members and leaders of NUMSA and its predecessor unions who are no longer with us. In particular I would like to dedicate t his speech to the memory of three comrades whose death touched me very deeply Cdes Phineas Sibiya, Flomena Mnikathi and Simon Ngubane. This year is 15 years since these three worker heroes were cowardly murdered by the apartheid regime and its political su rrogates. We owe it to Cde Mbuyi and all these comrades to build a strong NUMSA and intensify working class struggles for a people's democracy and socialism!

Your Congress takes place in the context of the following:

• The massive electoral victory of the ANC in the second democratic elections last year on a platform of accelerating change thus providing the context for further impetus to the deepening of the national democratic revolution
• But at the same time, the continuing and fierce contestation over the direction of the South African transition largely between forces which seek to limit the transition to a form of de-racialised capitalism and those forces whose interests will be served by the most thorough and complete transformation of our society.
• Mass struggles against the serious unemployment and poverty crisis gripping our country and region
• Continuing attacks, demonisation and weakening of the organised working class and the trade union movement broadly. These attacks largely informed by the illusion that our economy will be built on the basis of weakening organised workers and taking away its hard-won gains. We need to say here, loud and clear, that just as there could be no defeat of the apartheid regime without the struggles of organised workers, there can be no democratic South Africa without a powerful and revolutionary trade union movement
• The continuing globalisation of capitalism with its attendant crises and the simultaneous integration and marginalisation of the developing world.

It is for these reasons that we suggest that this Congress should be used as an opportunity to focus on the key challenges facing NUMSA and the working class as a whole.

Economic transformation

The SACP fully supported the COSATU campaign against job losses and the May 10 General Strike. For us as the SACP the key challenge facing South Africa's transition is the development of a coherent economic policy to drive a developmental path aimed at job creation and the eradication of poverty. For the SACP, this is the most critical challenge facing the liberation movement as a whole, and the working class in particular. We want a job-creating economy led by an active national democratic state, which int ervenes in the economy.

It is for all the above reasons that the SACP Strategy Conference said the following on economic transformation:

• Despite indications of possible moderate economic growth this year, and some important developmental gains, growth and development remain modest, uncertain and hostage to fickle market sentiment's, which represents little more than the prejudices and class interests of a tiny handful of powerful international financial circles.
• Despite all of the so-called macro-economic fundamentals being in place,including a budget deficit that is actually below government's economic framework targets, the anticipated flows of foreign direct investment have not been forthcoming. Indeed, major liberalisation measures have, for the moment seen a net outflow of capital.
• Economic growth and development must be based on the mobilisation, in the first place, of domestic capital resources (including public, parastatal, social and private domestic capital) around a coherent industrial strategy. This is also an approach that is, in any case, most likely to draw in significant flows of FDI.
• Such a strategy, we believe, stands a better chance of even directing FDI to areas of priority in terms of our development agenda, rather than a narrowly market-driven investment strategy, which might, for instance, focus on information technology. Development of information technology is important, but it cannot be developed as an isolated, abstract, catching-up phenomenon, as our people wont eat the internet. Rather our information technology should be developed and harnessed around our developmental agenda to meet the basic needs of the overwhelming majority of our people.
• This industrial strategy while obviously involving the core manufacturing sector must also encompass mining, agriculture, services and the “new economy. This approach must include sector by sector strategic plans, as well as spatial planning. The indus trial strategy must ensure coherence between, and initiatives in, all spheres of government, national, provincial and local.
• As part of this integrated industrial strategy we need a far-reaching restructuring and diversification of the financial sector.
  
  The financial sector is literally holding our economy at ransom, and its restructuring should include the following:
  
• Banks, through legislation, need to be forced to set aside certain amounts of money in low-cost housing, SMMEs and other developmental initiatives beneficial to the working people and the poor
• Creation of a co-operative banking sector, in which the savings of the working class are decided by the working class itself and be used to address the developmental needs of our people. For example, in a country like Cyprus, co-operative banks, which are legislated in law, provide for housing, infrastructure and loans to ordinary people at rates below the lending rates of commercial banks. There is no reason why we should not be saying the time has come now for the worker's to reclaim their stokvel moneys, insurance investments and their provident funds to be used for the benefit of the people themselves.
• We need, as an Alliance for instance, to have urgent discussions around the restructuring of public development finance institutions like the DBSA, to re-orient these towards infrastructural development initiatives aimed at realising our overall developm ent goals
• Integral to any industrial strategy should be the building and fostering of a co-operative movement and a sector of collectively owned economic entities, as the basis on which we empower ordinary people. For this, as the SACP, we argue that we need to revise extensively existing laws on co-operatives in order to create an environment conducive to the development of such entities
• We reject attempts to mechanically oppose economic spending and social spending, with the latter being seen as a simple deduction from what would otherwise be available for growth stimulation. Indeed, many of the major impediments to sustained growth and development are, precisely, social inequalities like infrastructure and skills. The point is not to oppose economic and social spending, but to find the appropriate interconnections between them in the context of overall industrial strategy.
• If the state is to play a central role, we have to resist a number of negative trends including
• Public service and parastatal management decisions to designate certain areas as core and others a non-core, especially when these decisions are entirely managerialist in character, and based on restructuring approaches designed for profit seeking private corporations, and involve little or no political strategic discussion;
• The tendency to see the state as essentially a buyer of services from the private sector, and not an economic actor in its own right;
• And the assumption that where there is a public sector monopoly in a key sector then either that entity has to be privatised, or the market has to be privatised and the relevant parastatal subjected to competition.

It is on the basis of a coherent industrial strategy that we should approach the restructuring of state assets, the public service in general and change in labour laws. On the labour laws the SACP is gravely concerned about the current labour law review pr ocess. We wish to use this opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to defend and consolidate a basic floor of worker rights. We also reaffirm our commitment to a 40-hour working week. The SACP believes that there is no rush to steamroller the proposed amend ments through NEDLAC at this point in time. We are of the view that we should not proceed with these amendments until we have discussed them in the Alliance. The SACP will never support any measure that threatens to erode hard-won worker rights.

Whilst the SACP welcomed the fact of the existence of the policy framework for the restructuring of state assets, the media misrepresented our position as if the SACP welcomes privatisation. This was a deliberate distortion of our position, showing that th e capitalist media is so desperate in the sale of state assets that it is even looking for support in strange quarters – amongst communists! We welcomed the fact that there is now a framework for the restructuring of state assets, which forms a basis for systematic discussion and engagement through the NFA.

We state categorically that we are opposed to the privatisation of state assets, as well as a restructuring programme driven by the logic of the capitalist market and competition. The history of privatisation in the world, particularly in the developing world, remains a disastrous one, and is a process that has only benefited the rich at the expense of the poor. The SACP argues for the restructuring of state assets directed at meeting the basic needs of our people and job creation.

Neo-liberal ideology asserts that in the current period privatisation is the only, and indeed preferable, route to economic growth and social development for South Africa.

The media in general has punted privatisation as if it were the gospel truth. Yet almost all evidence, particularly in developing countries, clearly point to the contrary. We have, as the SACP, consistently challenged ideologues of privatisation to tell us where has this thing succeed anywhere in the world, particularly on th e African continent. We are still waiting for proof up till now!

Globalisation as imperialism

Of course, all these tasks have to be undertaken within the context of a hostile global environment dominated by capitalism and its neo-liberal ideology. I do not intend going into detail on this question but just to highlight a few issues that are important for consideration by workers and other progressive forces in our country. Neo-liberal ideology presents capitalist globalisation as a be-all, and that there is no alternative to it. This point was in fact captured brilliantly by the late Cde Mbuyi Ngwenda, in the African Communist, 1997, thus:

By identifying globalisation as the only possible model for development, rather than a particular model based on certain social relations and social constructs, globalisation expands beyond the economic into the ideological as the only option. It acts as t he ultimate conservative ideology. Additional justification is redundant, any challenges irrelevant. What progressive are left with are lamentations about corporate power and hand wringing over our collective victimisation (Fourth Quarter, p.34)

What Cde Mbuyi was criticising and challenging is unfortunately a notion that sometimes gets expressed within the ranks of our own movement. We are told, sometimes even in the name of Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto, that capitalism is by its ve ry nature global and therefore there is nothing we can do about it, since it is an objective process. All we have to do is to sit it out, not challenge it, until it runs its course. In the meantime we have to negotiate the best terms for the incorporation of the developing world into this otherwise objective process. This is a very strange approach of using Marx in order to abandon Marxism – a new phenomenon we need to unstintingly challenge! What gets conveniently forgotten is that globalisation, objecti ve a process as it might be, is imperialism, a product of human history and is based on exploitation and inequality both within and between states.

This means that imperialism is premised on socially produced inequalities and therefore it has to be challenged. In particular it also means that we have to seek to struggle to create as much space as possible to forge a national development agenda. Those who argue that we should just accept it, have not told us to what extent h ave we, as a country, explored to the full the spaces available to us to pursue an agenda beneficial to the overwhelming majority of our people. The challenge for the working class therefore still remains the deepening of international working class solida rity in order to challenge capitalism at its global level and increase spaces to forge a national agenda so central even to our national sovereignty and pride as a people.

The key challenge for the working class:

Unleashing a mass movement for socio-economic transformation

The leading article in the current Umsebenzi makes a very important point when it alludes, very pertinently, to the case of Zimbabwe. The Umsebenzi article implies that unless we press ahead with altering the balance of forces in our country, we can find that our entire National Democratic Revolution runs out of steam, and gets to be rolled back. We must also reject the simplistic and conspiratorial notions that the loss of support by Zanu-PF is solely a result of counter -revolution, thus ignoring the effects of Zanu-PF government's economic policies on the majority of the population there.

The Zimbabwean case is pertinent because it reminds us that:

• Substantial changes and improvements in ordinary people's lives do not necessarily on their own strategically transform the balance of forces. In the first years of the 1980s there were substantial health, educational and land gains in Zimbabwe. Change is not necessarily transformation. Change without transformation can prove to be unsustainable, in the end change is rolled back, or remains blocked at a particular point.
• A liberation movement consolidating its grip on state power is, undoubtedly, important, but on its own it can prove to be inadequate, or even part of the reason for a subsequent loss of transformational momentum.
• Bureaucratic state power in the absence of (or disconnected from) mobilised mass power can prove to be weak power. It is vulnerable to external forces (e.g. IMF pressures); and it becomes the target of (rather than being reinforced by) popular mobilisation.

The big challenge therefore comrades is to mobilise our people behind socio-economic transformation that will benefit the working people and the poor. We cannot simply rely on government alone, given the power and pressure of capital on our government. We need a counter-balance, precisely in order to strengthen our government.

What does this mean concretely?

This means that in our opposition to privatisation, we must mobilise, acting together with our allies, organised workers, hawkers, the unemployed, farm and domestic workers behind a programme to defend and extend the public sector. It also means mobilising for key parastatals to remain in the hands of the state.

This also means that workers must mobilise for the convening of sectoral summits as per the Jobs Summit resolutions. It also means mobilising on the shop-floor to challenge unilateral restructuring of public and private enterprises by management

It also means the mobilisation of stokvels, burial societies, provident funds and savings clubs to be directed towards co-operative banks. It means mobilisation for the promulgation of laws to establish such ventures and challenge the stranglehold of banks over our economy. That is why the SACP is calling for your concrete support in our planned action towards the banks and the transformation of the financial sector on 21 October 2000.

It means mobilisation for public-community partnerships, and challenging the notion that the only best forms of partnerships are those with the private sector. It means mobilisation around working class policy positions on every aspect of life affecting th e majority of our people including HIV/AIDS, health policy, land redistribution, conditions of farm workers, provision of public transport, education system, pensions and welfare and so on.

Unleashing a mass movement for socio-economic transformation means mobilisation to unlock blockages in socio-economic transformation. This means that we have to build on the highly successful mass action campaigns against job losses and the general strike of May 10, to build a broad working class-led mass movement for socio-economic transformation. This is how we will build working class leadership and hegemony in society. And organised workers are the bedrock of working class struggles.

Perhaps also critically this means decisive steps needs to be taken for the establishment of a working class foundation, a working class think-tank, to research, analyse and develop broad based policies for the working class. This should not replace such organs as they may exist, but should harness all this work to advance working class perspectives. We hope NUMSA will raise this question at the COSATU Congress next month.

The economic debate will ultimately not be resolved in the boardrooms but through the strategic deployment of the mass power of the working class, backed by working class communities. These struggles also provide a unique opportunity for our Party to deepen its independent class organisation amongst the ranks of the working class. It is also very clear that the working class needs a strong SACP, and the SACP needs a revolutionary working class in order to take forward the struggle for socialism. This should be the clarion call to South African communists, wherever they are located: Root the Party in the working class!

As part of this overall struggle and offensive by the working class, we need also to use this opportunity to build the SACP as a vanguard of the working class. We therefore call upon metalworkers to intensify the building of workplace structures of the SAC P as well as ensuring that the Party has strong residential branches. This is a necessity for socialism.

On the Tripartite Alliance

It is rather unfortunate that since the adoption of Gear, the Alliance has shied away from discussing economic questions. Our December 1999 meeting started positively in this direction, but we need more urgent and intensive discussions around the question of a growth and developmental path as well as a package of key economic policies. As we said at our Strategy Conference, we need an Alliance consensus on economic policy as a basis for a nation-wide consensus involving key role-players in the economy. The longer we postpone these discussions, the more unnecessary problems and tensions we will have.

As the SACP we wish to endorse your resolution on the need to strengthen the ANC-led Alliance. This still remains the best vehicle to take forward the National Democratic Revolution. The key task in strengthening the Alliance is a working-class led mass mo vement for economic transformation, in order to drive an agenda for economic and political transformation through the power of the mass of our people.

As the SACP we are of the view that we need to be careful that the working class, and organised workers in particular do not isolate themselves and drive themselves into a corner. The idea of an independent worker's party would precisely isolate the working class and organised workers, thus unable to impact on the broad movement and the mass of our people. We fought and defeated workerism in the 1980s, and we cannot allow such a tendency to return to our ranks. Even some of its long-standing ideologues have abandoned it! In any case there is a worker's party in our country, and that is the SACP. The challenge is how to strengthen this SACP as part of building working class power both within and outside the Alliance.

With these words, we wish you a successful Congress!

Amandla!
Viva NUMSA! Viva COSATU! Viva ANC! Viva SACP!
Build People's Power, Build Socialism Now!

Blade Nzimande
General Secretary South African Communist Party