Address by Blade Nzimande, General Secretary to May Day Rally at Secunda, Mpumalanga
1 May 2007
We have now just completed our thirteenth year as a “new” democratic South Africa. For the working class and poor of our country much has changed for the better…and much still remains untransformed.
As we begin now the 14th post-apartheid year there is much that we can, and must claim as collective victories – millions of low cost houses built, new water connections and electricity connections, 11,8 million South Africans now benefiting from social security grants – like child support grants, pensions, and UIF.
And it is not just the material gains that we must note and celebrate – just thirteen years ago whites were citizens of South Africa and the majority were non-citizens. The basic human dignity of a shared, non-racial single South African citizenship enjoyed by all our people – this, too, is what we fought for, and what we must now claim and celebrate.
But if there have been huge changes in our society – for the workers and the poor there is much that still has to be changed, and there are even things that have got worse.
The country is increasingly calling for intensified working class leadership
As we gather here into the 14th year of our democratic South Africa, our country is increasingly calling for intensified working class leadership to consolidate and deepen our democracy. The reality is that the many problems and challenges that we face as a country cannot be resolved unless the working class takes up the leading role in our struggle.
Why?
In short, working class leadership is of even more importance because the major advances we have made have left the economy in the hands of the same old white capitalitst class. It is also for this reason that the SACP is calling for decisive socialist measures aimed at creating an economic dispensation that can benefit the overwhelming majority of our people. The capitalist market is daily failing the working class and the poor of our country; it is failing the overwhelming majority our women; and it is failing the overwhelming majority of black people!
The above also applies to service delivery. Where provision of basic services have been left in the hands of the capitalist market (eg. Telephony) there has been no delivery to the people.
Unless the working class is in the driving seat of the transformation process, we are not going to achieve the basic goals of our national liberation struggle.
We demand decent jobs
Over these past 13 years, more than a million workers lost their jobs in the formal sector. There are now some signs of stabilisation, and even of some small growth in jobs. But the level of unemployment in our society has risen from just over 20% to nearly 40%. And even if there is some improvement – it is “improvement” at crisis levels.
Hundreds of thousands of other workers have been casualised, or made temporaries, or contracted out. These are the “working poor”. Our ANC-led government has introduced important progressive legislation and regulations – like the Labour Relations Act, the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, and minimum wage sectoral determinations. But the bosses have not just sat still while these progressive measures have been introduced.
Part of the reason why workers have been casualised or thrown to the mercies of the labour brokers is so that the bosses can dodge progressive labour legislation. Our democratic government provides worker rights and protection…and the bosses take away these things in the pursuit of greater profits for themselves.
In the retail sector, in some of the biggest shopping chains, the majority of workers are now supposedly “temporary” – it is possible to be a worker, working day-in and day-out in the same Checkers or Woolworths store, for ten unbroken years…and still be a “temporary”. Only capitalism could invent such a monstrosity.
In other sectors, like private security, or construction there are also very high levels of semi-formal work. We know from last year’s extended security workers strike just how bad conditions are, how desperate workers are in that sector, and how cynical the security company bosses are.
With 2010 approaching, the construction companies are booming. Stadiums are being built, the Gautrain is under construction, airports are being extended and re-furbished. Much of this is being supported by R80 billion of tax-payers’ money coming out of the government budget.
But who is benefiting from this expansion of government spending? The working class IS benefiting to a certain extent…this infrastructure boom is certainly one of the key factors that have helped to stabilize (for the moment) the job-loss bloodbath of the first decade after 1994.
But between 40% and 60% of all workers in the construction sector are “temporary” workers. They are hired and retrenched at will, while the bosses and share-holders walk off with the billions. It is the bosses and share-holders that are reaping the majority of the benefits from government’s 80 billions of rands of spending on infrastructure for 2010. Murray and Roberts, Group 5, Basil Read, LTA, Aveng, the white bosses and their new black “partners”. But while they make billions of rands out of the sweat of their workers, they do not regard many of these workers as “theirs” – they are just hired by the day or week from labour-brokers, but without pensions and other rights.
In the minibus sector, government announced a minimum wage declaration for drivers in the sector. That was two years ago – it would be an interesting (but very futile exercise we suspect) to find out if a single taxi driver, anywhere in SA is actually being paid a proper wage, and a wage that at least meets the legal requirement.
The SACP calls for a massive job creation drive. The SACP says an end to casualisation. The SACP says decent jobs for all workers!.
A “flexible labour market”???
For years now capitalist circles in South Africa, and their friends in the media and their DA shop-stewards in parliament have been arguing that SA’s “labour market is not flexible enough”. There were colleagues in government who also began to believe this fairy story. Some even tried, unsuccessfully at the 2005 ANC NGC, to float the idea of greater labour market “flexibility”.
Instead, we managed to persuade the ANC, and through the ANC the government, to conduct serious research on the matter. Government funded what was called an “expert panel of international economists”, who also worked with local experts. After lengthy research, and much economic modeling and analysis these experts came to conclusions that are correct conclusions. But they are conclusions that every single worker in South Africa could have told them long ago. We did not need overseas experts to tell us this, workers’ own daily experiences and what we have been saying as the SACP should have been listened to years ago!
The expert panel found that economic growth in South Africa is NOT being hindered, and unemployment is NOT being caused, by labour market inflexibility, as a result of workers “earning too much”, or of “trade unions being too powerful and militant”.
In fact, the experts found that real wages of workers have not risen since 1994!
They found that between 1995 and 2005, the real wages of workers have DECLINED by 10%!
This is what the expert panel says: the only role, if any, that a strong trade union movement has played is to “prevent real wages from falling” by even greater percentages!!!
The real inflexibilities in the labour market are not trade union militancy – but things like:
The SACP calls for safe, affordable and accessible public transport for all! We call on workers to demand from their local municipalities clear integrated transport planning and implementation. We call for public ownership of taxi ranks, we call for public regulation and effective control over the operations of transport providers.
The SACP calls for mass housing roll out close to places of work and to amenities. We call for towns and cities that finally move away from the apartheid spatial arrangements that still prevail!
Public sector work is productive and socially necessary work
After our 1994 democratic breakthrough big capital in South Africa persuaded many leading comrades in government that a large public sector work-force was, supposedly, a “drain” on economic growth. We were told to “right-size” and to “down-size” …but never to UP-SIZE.
As our own government is now increasingly beginning to discover, this neo-liberal advice has proved to be a disaster for the development of our country, and even for sustainable growth.
But for nearly 10 years we neglected key professions – teachers, health-care workers, librarians, police and prison warders, municipal workers. We spoke the language of down-sizing and wage freezes. While not everyone in these professions is necessarily a saint, we insulted all of them as if they were all lazy and drunken.
Morale was battered. Large numbers left their professions. Others emigrated.
And now? And now we are beginning to realise that there is no sustainable growth and development without the key contribution of hundreds of thousands of public sector workers.
Now…but quite late in the day…we are speaking of doubling the police force, of improving teachers’ remuneration, of spending money on teacher training colleges, and libraries.
For the bourgeoisie, public sector work is work from which they do not draw a direct private profit. The bourgeoisie can afford private health care and private security. For them, public sector work is basically something that have to contribute to by way of taxes. But for millions of South Africans – if there are no public schools, if there is no public health-care system, if there is no municipal services, then education, health care and service simply would not exist at all.
The SACP says: let us understand that public sector workers are the core cadre of our national democratic revolution. There is no developmental state without a motivated, skilled and professional cadre of public sector workers. Let us expand the public sector, let us UP-SIZE public sector work, let us pay the public sector equitably.
The public sector is not some temporary, basket-case charity enterprise. The public sector is the seed of a different kind of economy – an economy in which we place meeting social needs (and not maximizing private profit) in the driving seat.
Financial sector transformation
The SACP salutes all workers, trade unions and other progressive formations who have joined us over the last several years in the struggle to transform the financial sector.
Here, too, we have made some progress. The big banks have been forced to make some moves to introduce a more affordable banking service through the Mzansi account. Government has introduced new Credit control legislation, and a limit has been placed on the interest that the loan-sharks can charge our people.
But there is still much more to be done. The banks are refusing to consult with the Nedlac partners. The banks boast about developmental projects – but refuse to allow independent monitoring. When we probe a little bit we find that some of these developmental projects are things like selling a wine farm to BEE capitalists, or the UShaka World construction in eThekwini Durban!!
Above all, there is still the crisis of “black-listing”. Some 5 million South Africans are black-listed by the Credit Bureaux. This is a national crisis. Many of these 5 million have been listed for small sums of money.
Because they are black-listed, many are unable to begin to take the steps that would enable them to pay off their debts and begin to make a new start. Graduates from working class households answer job ads, qualify for the post but are then rejected because they are black-listed for a debt on their university fees.
So how will they ever get employment so that can cover the debt?
There is now some limited credit amnesty granted by the credit regulator to those of our people listed in the credit bureaux.
This is some progress, and it shows that if we organize, mobilize and unite we can begin to roll back the empire of private profits and labour super-exploitation.
It is for reasons like this that the SACP and 50 other formations in the Financial Sector Campaign are calling for:
A once-off hundred–percent amnesty for the 5 million South Africans who are black-listed so that they and their families can begin to make a new start.
We are not saying that they should not pay their debts. We are not calling for a debt forgiveness. We are saying: Remove their names from the black-list. The black-list is throttling them, their families and…indeed, our economy.
The Food Crisis
The price of basic food has risen 70% over the last seven years. For the rich, as usual, this is a minor irritation. The rich spend, on average, around 17% of their income on food, on whisky, on caviar.
But for poor households, more than half of the family income is spent on basic food staples.
What is more, the food inflation rate for many poor households, and especially for the poorest of the poor, is actually much higher than the official figures. The poorest of the poor can’t access super-markets and by the time a bag of potatoes, or a sack of mielie meal reaches their distant township or village…its price is much higher than is super-market price.
One out of every five households is now reporting that they are suffering serious food shortages.
Why is this happening?
There are many factors, some of which are hard to control – like the price of oil.
But some of our own policies must be urgently reviewed:
But on top of this, we have failed to implement a serious land and agrarian reform programme:
The SACP says:
The SACP calls on trade union activists to work together with us to help to establish Peoples Land Committees to take forward the struggles of the land-hungry masses.
End oppression in Zimbabwe and attempts to turn Western Sahara into a bantustan!
The SACP is deeply concerned about the situation in Zimbabwe. Unemployment is around 80%. Inflation is around 2000% - in Zimbabwe shops change the price of food 3 times a day!
In the face of this all-round crisis which it has brought about, the ZANU-PF governing elite is without shame. It shows no concern for its own people. 7000 homes were destroyed and many thousands of livelihoods smashed in Harare in the name of Operation Murambatsvina/Clear out the Rubbish. Daily, worker leaders and shop stewards are beaten up and imprisoned. Draconian laws, worse than even apartheid dreamt up, are used to outlaw meetings, and to clamp down on the freedom of speech.
Democracy must be restored to Zimbabwe. Human rights must be respected. The government must end its rule of terror.
What is the role of South Africa, its government and people?
President Mbeki has been appointed by SADC to lead a process of engagement with the Zimbabwean government and opposition. We hope that this task will be taken up with determination.
In the Zimbabwean elections of 2002, the South African government declared the elections “sufficiently free and fair” – despite the fact that it had extensive information of major intimidation and irregularities.
For the elections of 2005, SADC had developed an excellent set of “Protocols”, which clearly spelled out the preconditions for any free and fair elections.
Sadly, despite these excellent “Protocols”, the S African government (along with Britain and the US) urged the Zimbabwean opposition to participate in the 2005 elections even though it was abundantly clear that the basic preconditions for free and fair elections (in terms of SADC’s own protocols) had not been remotely met.
We hope that this time the correct lessons have been learnt. There can be no free and fair elections - and therefore no political resolution to the all-round crisis in Zimbabwe - unless there is an extended period of a year in which:
The crisis in Zimbabwe is a crisis for South Africa. How can we talk of an “African Renaissance” when we remain silent about tyranny across our border? How can we have a sustainable and shared growth in South Africa, when millions of starving and unemployed Zimbabweans are having to flee into our country?
The SACP says: “An injury to one, is an injury to all!!” Let us speak up boldly against the repression in Zimbabwe. Let us mount ongoing solidarity actions with our brothers and sisters across the Limpopo. Long live working class internationalism! Long live!
On the issue of liberating the last African colony – the Western Sahara – the SACP welcomes the progressive stance of the South African government in the UN Security Council to speed up processes towards self-determination for the Saharawi people.
We therefore wish to strongly condemn attempts by Moroccan government to stall the process of self-determination for the Saharawi people, and the treacherous support that this regime is getting from France, the US and Spain. Morocco is suggesting that Saharawi be a Bantustan under the Moroccan regime. We reject Morocco’s bantustanisation plan just as we reject apartheid’s.
The SACP therefore calls for:
We also call upon all the workers of our country, during this the Policy and Congress Year, to go and actively participate in all their ANC and SACP branches in order to ensure that the workers’ voice is the decisive voice in all these events.
Forward to socialism!