Extracts from the Address to the National Congress of the National Union of Mineworkers, 8 May 2003 By Blade Nzimande, General Secretary, South African Communist Party

Speech Entitled "The Goals of the National struggle have not been achieved, nor can they be without the class struggle: Going back to the basics in order to advance"

Extracts below cover:

• SACP Assessment of 9 years of Freedom
• A 10 year vision for the working class
• SACP comment on the Growth and Development Summit including the National HIV/AIDS Treatment Plan

ALMOST 10 YEARS OF FREEDOM

Since 1994, the SACP as a loyal, active, but also independent party of the working class has sought to analyse our situation – not from the perspective of “potential investors”, not from the perspective of tourists, not from the perspective of “how foreign bankers will see us”, not from the perspective of the Joburg Securities Exchange, not from the perspective of the bourgeoisie, or those who aspire to become part of the bourgeoisie.

Huge changes

Since 1994, we have built more than a million houses for poor people. We have supplied safe drinking water to millions. We have introduced the Labour Relations Act, and Basic Conditions of Employment, we have laid down minimum wages for domestic workers and farm-workers. We have introduced a single education system for all, black and white. We have deracialised pensions, we have introduced a Child Support Grant, and we are extending the age limit.

Thanks to our campaigns, we have also won the commitment to implement free basic levels of water and electricity to poor households.

Above all, through our struggles, we are building a united, non-racial, democratic South Africa in which, never again, should anyone ever have to call some-one else, “baas” or “miesies”.

But huge problems

But in the midst of building this new South Africa, over one million workers have lost their jobs in the formal sector.

As we have been constructing a democratic South Africa, the number of unemployed has risen from 2 million to a shocking 4 million.

As we struggle to build a non-racial South Africa, what do the government figures tell us? Between 1995 and 2000:

• The average African household income fell by 19%, to R26 000 a year
• Average white household incomes rose by 16%, to R158 000 a year

Why are these shocking things happening? They are happening because the capitalist system isn’t just a spectator, passively watching us trying to build a new, united, non-racial, democratic South Africa that belongs to all who live in it.

We introduce the Basic Conditions of Employment and the LRA. What do the capitalists do? They retrench, they casualise, they contract out. They do their best to minimise the number of workers who can actually enjoy their hard-won rights. They displace workers with machines. After all, machines aren’t covered under the LRA or BCEA.

We introduce sectoral determinations on a minimum wage for farm and domestic workers, employers are retrenching left, right and centre – in essence a defiance of these sectoral determinations.

Does this mean we should not have introduced the LRA, sectoral determinations and BCEA? That we should have, as the bosses say, a “more flexible” labour market? Absolutely no! It means we have to find ways to force the bosses to comply with legislation, to retain jobs, to hire more workers, to be more labour intensive, or face the combined power of unions and government.

What is the point of having all these progressive laws on paper if the bosses can find ways to avoid then and if we cannot enforce them. If this continues to be the case, then we run the danger of delegitimising our own democratic government and its processes. The SACP calls for the consolidation of state capacity to ensure that the laws mentioned above are effectively enforced. This includes the consolidation of the inspectorate at the Department of Labour. The SACP also recognises that thus consolidation must be accompanied by ongoing mass mobilisation and in this regard we call for the intensification of the COSATU recruitment and education campaign focusing on vulnerable workers. This is an important part of the class struggle.

In other words, the bosses must bend! Flexible bosses, yes! Flexible labour markets, no!

A 10 YEAR VISION FOR THE WORKING CLASS

In tackling these realities and evaluating a decade of our freedom, we must also be planning ten years ahead. What kind of society would the working class like to see emerging 10 years from now? Where would the working class and its organisation like to see itself 10 years from now?

We call on all worker formations to engage and elaborate on this programme as we implement it. Other crucial considerations in such a vision should include the following outcomes:

• A decisive and qualitative impact by the working class on key sites of power and decision making such that no significant centre of power in society can be able to exercise that power without a decisive input and taking the working class concerns seriously into consideration
• A state-led and working class driven accumulation regime which is biased towards meeting the socio-economic needs of the workers and the poor, including a large, vibrant social and co-operative sector in the economy, including financial co-operatives job creation, increased investment in infrastructure and economy as a whole, and improved delivery of social services)
• Building a significant presence of a conscious working class cadre and intellectuals to drive transformation of state institutions (at all levels) and harnessing the various progressive mass formations into a vibrant social movement, including a workiclass led civic movement
• Regulation and direction of significant resources in private hands towards developmental objectives
• Fewer, but large trade union cartels and a decisive advance towards a single trade union federation
• A substantially larger SACP, with significant presence and influence in key sites of power

THE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT SUMMIT

It is critical that the Growth and Development Summit doesn’t just think that “business as usual, for business” is good enough. We have to address the virus inside the system. While special projects for the poor – like public works programmes – are important, we cannot treat unemployment and poverty as if they were unfortunate accidents, “back-log” from the past.

The following are key issues that the GDS must address:

• Achieving much higher levels of labour intensity in our economy. Much greater pressure should be placed on private sector corporations, especially those involved in infrastructure construction.
  
• We must develop strategies for sustainable livelihoods even if people do not have formal jobs in the capitalist sector through encouraging alternative forms of ownership, production and marketing – especially co-operatives. The GDS must commit governm, the financial sector and all other key players to create conditions for the flourishing of this mass cooperative sector in our country.
• We must avoid seeing social security measures as “unfortunate” but “perhaps necessary”, “short-term”, “dependency-creating” initiatives. Rather, we must use various social security measures as active catalysers for sustainable livelihoods – a fare foransport to access training, seed money for a household-based vegetable garden, a monthly input into a community recycling co-operative.
• The important resolutions of last year’s Financial Sector Summit must be embodied in the wider Growth and Development Summit, and they must be implemented.
• Well intentioned mass housing programmes have, generally, been located in the same distant townships, with little commercial and industrial development. Transport costs have escalated, and the danger of perpetuating rather than overcoming marginalisat is sometimes deepened.
• The role of the public sector, including key parastatals, remains absolutely critical to an effective South African growth and development strategy – and indeed to growth and development within our continent. Privatisation exposes our economy to the short-term profit-maximising vagaries of global markets, influenced, in turn, by many things beyond our control – fluctuations in the Rand’s relative value, the SARS epidemic, or the invasion of Iraq. We must stop being shy about the public sector. We must build it and protect it, and the GDS must resolve on this.
• HIV/AIDS - A growth and development strategy cannot be seen in isolation from the HIV/AIDS pandemic within our country. Perhaps as many as 900 South Africans are dying, daily, of HIV/AIDS related diseases. The SACP welcomed last year’s April announcem by government on a comprehensive approach to HIV/AIDS, including a comprehensive treatment policy. Unfortunately, there have been long delays in implementing an effective public health anti-retroviral treatment plan. The SACP cannot understand why there has been so much delay. We call on government, in particular, to move forward with its commitment in this respect. We call on all South Africans to unite together in action to confront this enormous challenge.