Delivered by Blade Nzimande, SACP General Secretary, National May Day Rally, Kimberley
1 May 2004
This May Day, 2004, marks the first anniversary of the tragic death of our comrades, whose bus plunged into a dam in the Free State. The SACP shall never forget them, and we shall always honour and remember them as heroes and heroines of the working class struggle in our country!
We are holding this MayDay in the wake of the overwhelming victory of the ANC in the 2004 elections. There could have been no better way to honour these worker cadres than to ensure electoral victory for the ANC. We therefore also wish to take this opportunity to congratulate the ANC for its overwhelming victory in the 2004 elections. In addition we wish to congratulate SACP and COSATU cadres for the sterling role they played in the election campaign, including “amadelakufa” from the SACP and COSATU who went to monitor the elections in what used to be IFP strongholds and death traps, like Nongoma and Ulundi. Without their sacrifice and the courage of these worker and working class leaders there would have been no electoral victory in KZN. We also congratulate the ANC for winning the Western Cape province.
We would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the workers of our country in general, and COSATU in particular, for the struggles they have waged during the first decade of our freedom to ensure that we have transformation that is beneficial to the workers and the poor. That we are celebrating 10 years of our freedom is not the least also due to the role that workers and COSATU have played. We expect an even stronger role by COSATU and all the workers of our country in the second decade of our freedom.
However it is critical that workers must just not be spectators in governance. The workers and working class as a whole must never, ever demobilize. Workers must mobilize to assist government and drive transformation programmes at all levels of governance. In particular we need to mobilize our people to make use of the opportunities created by the policies of the ANC-led government.
Let workers take full responsibility for their vote
As we said during the election campaign the ANC Manifesto is premised precisely on the issues that the workers and poor of our country, including the working class, have been consistently rising during the first decade of our freedom. The themes of creating work and poverty eradication are the twin challenges around which workers, led by COSATU, have waged enormous struggles in the recent years. COSATU engaged in marches and other mass struggles in late 1990’s till recently around jobs and poverty eradication. The ANC Manifesto emphasizes leading role of government in economic transformation provides a unique opportunity for the workers to mobilize around intervention that will turn our economy around for the benefit of the workers and the poor.
Therefore the challenge for the working class of our country is to take responsibility for their vote by being in the forefront in the implementation of the ANC Manifesto. The working class should use its organizational muscle to mobilize and seek to lead the rest of society in ensuring that indeed the ANC Manifesto is implemented in their favour. Leadership of the working class is essential so that no other class force, black or white, hijacks this victory at the expense of the working class. We must not allow this victory to be stolen from the workers and the poor!
Build the Alliance and build worker power in the economy
If anything this election has taught us once more that when we work together as an Alliance, we can take the country forward. This should be a lesson that weakening the Alliance is the single biggest threat to consolidation and deepening of the national democratic revolution. As the SACP we wish to reiterate that this increased electoral mandate of the ANC is ostensibly a mandate from the workers and poor of our country. We agree with the President of the ANC that this victory should not make us arrogant, but to remember that this is a mandate to accelerate and deepen the national democratic revolution, with and for workers and the poor.
The SACP fully supported and mobilized its entire structures for an ANC electoral victory for a number of reasons. These included:
Central to all the above must be the creation of alternative framework or model for economic empowerment, particularly the building of co-operatives and programmes to transform the living conditions for the working class, urban and rural women, the youth and the poor. It is for these reasons that we are calling for a comprehensive audit of black economic empowerment thus far, in order to establish who has benefited from these initiatives. We also need as the working class to develop very clear criteria and monitoring mechanisms to ensure that the primary beneficiaries of BEE are the workers and the poor. Is it the workers and the poor, or a small elite? In such a review we need to undertake a critical evaluation of how the workers, the urban and rural poor, working class youth, the disabled and women have benefited from such a programme. In doing this we need to critique the practice of drawing these sectors into token capitalist shareholding in the name of empowerment.
During this election campaign the SACP reached out to thousands of farm workers and other more vulnerable workers, including domestic and casual workers. It is clear to us that their working conditions have not changed, despite the many progressive labour laws passed by the ANC government. On this May Day we call upon the labour movement and all progressive forces to intensify the struggle to liberate the more vulnerable workers form apartheid type working conditions.
The 2004 ANC electoral victory must therefore bring about drastic measures to address poverty and joblessness. The mandate the ANC got gives a very clear message that it cannot be business as usual. The workers and the poor are basically saying that a lot of progress has been made, but they want more. We fully agree with the President of the ANC that this victory should be arrogant, but we should go back to work and address the needs of the workers and the poor.
How far are we with the banks campaign?
Credit Bureau Regulation
We know that credit bureaus are a big problem in the lives of our people, especially for those who are blacklisted and where wrong information appears on the credit bureau records.
Eighteen months ago, the government agreed to regulate credit bureaus. We worked with them to finalise these regulations so that our people would be treated fairly by credit bureaus.
We told the government that our people are suffering because credit bureaus:
Now, the Department of Trade and Industry says it no longer wants to sign those credit bureau regulations into law. They want to wait another year, or maybe even longer, before they start to regulate credit bureaus.
To that we say no, we can’t wait any longer. We want credit bureaus regulated by the government immediately.
We call on the new Minister of Trade and Industry, Comrade Mandisi Mpahlwa to make sure that approving the credit bureau regulations is one of the first things that he does when he starts his new job.
We want to see those regulations in place next week, not next year.
Credit Law Reform
Another area where we want to see strong leadership from Minister Mpahlwa and his colleague, the new Minister of Justice, Cde Bridgette Mabandla, is in reforming the whole system of credit and debt in our country.
This is a problem that has not been dealt with properly in the past ten years. Now is the time to make sure that the interests of ordinary South Africans - of the working class who gave Cdes Mpahlwa and Mabandla and others a resounding election victory – come first, not last.
For too long our people have suffered because government policy and laws have favoured business interests above the interests of the working class.
The government’s own research shows that in South Africa:
This is a system that rewards the rich and punishes the poor. It is a system that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer.
Rich people can borrow from banks to start businesses, get loans for houses and cars, get credit cards, petrol cards, buy clothes, shoes, everything on credit and pay back from their salaries at rates they can afford.
Poor people struggle to get loans from banks; they must use the money for food, school fees, transport, and for emergencies like funerals.
They have to borrow from the so-called micro lenders, the loan sharks who charge the most interest. As you all know, it is not unusual for these micro lenders to charge up to 360% or even 500% interest per year on small loans to poor people, workers, and pensioners.
This is a shameful legacy after 10 years of democracy. We can not celebrate 10 years of exploitation of the working class and the poor. It is time for change. This exploitation must end.
We do not want a system where loan sharks masquerading as respectable micro lenders or banks steal what little we have in high interest charges.
We want the government to put a limit on interest charges to the poor. We want the same 20% interest as the rich.
We will be leading a delegation to the new minister to demand that he acts quickly to deal with this issue. We call on the working class, the people most exploited by loan sharks, micro lenders and banks, to support us.
Financial Sector Charter
We will also be stepping up our campaign to transform the financial sector so that it meets the needs of all our people.
This campaign has started to bear fruit, but we must work harder with our allies in the trade unions, with women’s, youth, disabled, faith, community and other organisations to make sure that we achieve the goal we set ourselves three years ago: making the banks serve the people.
The banks have made some progress by drawing up a Finance Sector Charter. We welcome this as a first step. But they made a mistake of thinking they could go it alone.
They remind me of the story of the tortoise and the hare. The banks tried to rush ahead alone, just like the short-sighted, selfish hare.
We, like the slow and steady tortoise, kept reminding them: Don’t rush ahead without us.
We don’t want only a few changes at the top of the financial industry in the name of Black Economic Empowerment. We don’t want change that will only see a few already-rich black businessmen becoming owners of banks. We want changes that:
We have now brought the banks back to NEDLAC, which is where the talk of a transformation Charter started in the first place. We say that this Charter - like other steps to transform the banks, insurance and other financial institutions - must be negotiated by all the social partners – government, business, labour and community – if it is to be accepted by all in our country and bring the changes we all want.
Nobody should expect the leaders of the working class to simply rubberstamp Charters or any other agreements that we had no hand in drafting.
We are answerable only to you - the workers, women, young people and old, unemployed and students - whose interests we represent in structures like NEDLAC.
Transformation of important sectors of our economy is of just as much interest and importance to all workers, the users or buyers of goods and services as to the banks, the providers or suppliers of goods and services or the regulators, government and its agencies. This is a lesson that some in the financial sector seem to have difficulty learning.
We will make sure that our interests, the interests of ordinary South Africans, are not left behind in transformation of banks and the financial sector.
We therefore call upon the working class as a whole, and organised workers in particular – as the most organized layer of this class – to strengthen its formations, flex its muscle, to struggle for the following:
We also wish to use this May Day to reiterate our call for the entire trade union movement of our country to agree on a workers’ pact to promote economic growth and development. Workers must control their financial resources, including pension, provident funds and insurance savings. It is time that we challenge the unilateral control and investment decisions over workers’ funds by the financial institutions of the capitalist classes. A united working class must break the seemingly arrogant culture of entitlement by business to want to use workers’ monies as it deems fit. In any case the locomotive for taking forward the ANC electoral victory will be united trade union action and the working class as a whole to work towards transforming the current accumulation regime in favour of the workers and the poor.
This united working class action must be located within the broader goal of deepening trade union unity in our country, and earnestly work towards the goal of one country one federation. There is increasingly more that unites the working class than divides it, including the common challenge of unemployment, retrenchments, poverty and the current global neo-liberal restructuring of the economy, including the workplace. It is only a united working class; uniting African, Coloured, Indian and White workers; on the basis of a progressive non-racial outlook, that is the social force best capable of taking our country out of the current crisis of unemployment and poverty, and lead South African society towards a better life for all.
Challenges for the second decade of our freedom: Deepen the national democratic revolution and intensify struggle against capitalism
We are also celebrating this 2004 May Day as part of celebrating 10 years of South Africa’s democracy. We are indeed celebrating many advances made during this period – progressive labour laws, transfer of significant resources to the poor (including electrification, clean drinking water, housing, etc), as well as consolidation of our democratic structures. However these advances have sat uncomfortably and in contradiction to continuing poverty and joblessness, and other obstacles created by the capitalist nature of our society and globally.
In order to address and effectively respond to the electoral mandate of the workers and the poor as well as the challenge of joblessness and poverty, it is absolutely critical that we place working class interests at the centre of transformation of South African society. In this respect this second decade of our freedom requires that we intensify the class offensive against the bourgeoisie if we are to address poverty and joblessness. This means that we cannot address gender inequalities unless from a consistently from a working class perspective. We cannot address the national question, including racism, unless it is from a consistently working class perspective. We cannot address underdevelopment in our country, our continent unless it is done from a working class perspective. We cannot address and defeat imperialism and global inequalities unless this is led by the working class, from the standpoint of its political interests. Any approach to all these questions and problems outside class perspective of the workers and the poor will not succeed. It is from this angle and perspective that the SACP will engage on the terrain of struggles during the second decade of our freedom!
As we enter the second decade of our freedom we wish to express our serious concerns that private capital in this country has not played a meaningful role in the overall transformation of our country. Government’s Ten Year Review points out clearly what we have always been saying over the last five to six years. As a country we have made enormous progress in those areas where the government has taken a lead – electrification, clean drinking water, housing, telephony, access to primary health care, etc – the lives of our people have changed for the better. Where we have left matters to the private sector we have seen retrenchments, outsourcing, no access to banks for the majority of our people, and no investment in low cost housing and other public infrastructure, and generally an investment strike by big business, including divestment offshore.
Many South African companies are awash with cash – profits from the sweat and blood of the workers, yet they have not played their part in economic reconstruction. Therefore as workers we need to understand that the primary culprit for worsening poverty and the job loss bloodbath in our country is capitalism. In other words, private capital and capitalism has not been part of the reconciliation and foundations of poverty eradication we have been trying to build during the first decade of our freedom. Of course we know, capitalism doesn’t care about people’s needs but solely about their profits!
We therefore call upon the working class as a whole, and organized workers in particular – as the most organized layer of this class – to strengthen its formations, flex its muscle, to struggle for the following:
For the SACP all these struggles are part of our longer- term objective, to build a socialist South Africa. It is only socialism that will ultimately address all of the problems we inherited from apartheid and achieve a just and equitable society. Let this ANC electoral victory lay the foundations for building a momentum and elements towards a socialist South Africa. This can only be done if we approach the second decade of our freedom by intensifying and escalating the class struggle, with and for the workers and the poor! This is how the working class should take responsibility for its vote.
On May Day it is always important to remember that workers can never win their struggles outside of international working class solidarity. One of the immediate challenges for South African workers is to intensify such worker global solidarity, starting immediately by strengthening worker solidarity in Southern Africa and the African continent as a whole. The SACP commits itself to intensifying its work to support and strengthen such Southern African and African worker solidarity. It is important the voice of the workers is heard in the African Union, in SADC and NEPAD. These are matters that should not be left to governments alone.
Congratulations and a happy May Day!