Build Working Class Power for a Developmental State, with and for workers and the poor: Notes for an address to NEHAWU Congress

26 June 2007

Blade Nzimande, General Secretary, South African Communist Party

We are presently in a very important, but simultaneously fluid, moment in the history of our revolution. This year the various formations of our movement will be holding vital decision making Congresses convening to chart a way forward on what essentially should be the direction of the National Democratic Revolution.

It is therefore important to understand that this very congress is part of these vital gatherings and you should approach it as such. The ANC Policy Conference is taking place this week and it is a crucial gathering that is faced with very stark choices. Amongst these is whether this Conference will be bold enough to come up with economic policies that lay the basis for a break with the current growth path, whose primary beneficiaries is the white bourgeoisie, now joined by a small black elite. Or it will develop cold-feet and continue with economic business as usual, which has not addressed the yawning developmental challenges in our country.

The source of the fluidity in the democratic revolution has a lot to do with the fact that objective reality in order to advance our revolution requires some radical changes to transform the growth path we are in.

There is also an intensifying and deepening class struggle over the direction of our democratic revolution. One example of this is the offensive by both domestic and sections of global capital to try and blackmail delegates to the ANC Policy Conference. Some of the leading imperialist economic rating agencies have publicly communicated that they are postponing a new rating for South Africa until after the ANC Policy Conference.

We want to send a clear message to these imperialist rating agencies; the ratings they should be doing must not be about how much profits they will get out of capitalist investments in South Africa, but what is their rating of poverty, unemployment, hunger, disease and the general well-being of ordinary South Africans. Unless they do this, they might as well shred their ratings, and the working class of our country will rate its own government and economic climate in terms of how many jobs are being created, how much are we doing to eradicate poverty! Enough is enough of imperialist blackmail at the expense of the workers and the poor of our country!

Many advances, but political freedom in a colonial economy

The SACP welcomes the many advances made by our revolution since 1994. We further welcome the economic shifts that have been taking place over the last few years, including a move away from the privatisation of key state-owned enterprises. We must ensure that these shifts are not just temporary, but instead they must be deepened.

But we are concerned that these shifts are more to do with building infrastructure in order to lower the cost of doing business rather than to lower the cost of living.

Historically, there was never a mistake, or understatement that the NDR sought to address, in an interrelated way, the class, national and gender contradictions in South African society. The NDR recognised the objective reality that South Africa`s Colonialism of a Special was characterised by the interconnectedness of class exploitation, national oppression and patriarchy.

Whilst national and gender oppression were the predominant contradictions in South African CST, class exploitation is correctly understood as primary, and almost the fundamental reason and bedrock upon which national oppression and patriarchy were reproduced and entrenched.

As our struggle for national liberation matured, our national liberation movement led by the ANC came to the realisation that no struggle for national liberation could be class neutral. This is reflected in the historical realisation of the NLM that in South Africa, more than any other part of the oppressed world-it would inconceivable for liberation to have meaning without a return of the wealth of the land to the people as a whole.

The experiences that workers undergo and the levels of unemployment and poverty in South Africa are a testimony to the observation that liberation without a return of the wealth of the land to the people as a whole is meaningless. That is why the fundamental contradiction in South African society today, thirteen years after the 1994 democratic breakthrough still remains that of a liberation movement with political power but in a colonial economy.

It is also for this reason that we characterised 1994 not as the achievement of the total liberation of the African people in particular, and blacks in general, but as a `democratic breakthrough`. This was because we knew that the total liberation of the African people can only be achieved if we are able to fundamentally transform the CST economy. In addition there can never be the total liberation of black people short of a transition to socialism. It is precisely for these reasons that as the SACP we have correctly argued that the very consolidation and deepening of the NDR require some socialist-type measures.

We also characterised 1994 as a democratic breakthrough also because it was a negotiated settlement and not an outright liquidation of colonialism of a special type. Like most negotiated transitions in the developing world especially, this involved a class compromise that would still require a working class driven transition period to seek to significantly alter class relations of CST.

Given these challenges, never in the history of our country since the 1994 democratic breakthrough, are the political conditions crying out for decisive and radical working class leadership in the whole of society. Unless the working class appreciates this reality, our national democratic revolution runs the risk of being defeated, thus marking the rolling back of the many gains made by the working class, and undermining the prospects of a working class-led, socialist oriented NDR and a future transition to socialism- the only alternative capable of taking us beyond the barbarism of capitalism.

Our detractors, as well as the 1996 class project that has come to be dominant within our movement and the state refer to this type of thinking outlined above as `ultra-left`. They do this precisely because they want to allow the capitalist market to run amok and for pursuance of capitalist profitability and `lowering the cost of doing business` as the only path for development in South Africa. In short these are policies for a trickle down. These strategies have clearly failed and that is why the 1996 class project is in a crisis, as these have failed to curb unemployment, poverty and the widening gap between the rich and the poor in our country.

Accelerate the implementation of the radical and emancipatory vision of the Freedom Charter

Our national liberation movement, led by the ANC, has historically never been mistaken about what the Freedom Charter meant as an answer to defeating colonialism of a special type and its economy. The Freedom Charter envisioned a society in which the mineral wealth beneath the soil, monopoly industry and banks should be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole.

The Freedom Charter further envisioned a society where

• All who work shall be free to form trade unions, to elect their officers and to make wage agreements with their employers;
• The state shall recognise the right and duty of all to work, and to draw full unemployment benefits;
• Men and women of all races shall receive equal pay for equal work;
• There shall be a forty-hour working week, a national minimum wage, paid annual leave, and sick leave for all workers, and maternity leave on full pay for all working mothers;
• Miners, domestic workers, farm workers and civil servants shall have the same rights as all others who work;
• Child labour, compound labour, the tot system and contract labour shall be abolished.

Much as our democratic government has gone a long way in guaranteeing these working class rights as contained in the Freedom Charter, a lot more needs to be done about transformation the CST economy as a whole.

It does not require rocket science to notice that there are indeed some divergence that have begun to emerge in our historically common strategic thinking on the transformation of the CST economy. It is of no use to deny these or simply reduce these divergences to obvious reality that the past 13 years have witnessed a strategic shift from what used be common and shared perspective in the South African liberation movement. Rather the best way to deal with this strategic divergence is to acknowledge it and seek to find one another in the alliance to bridge whatever gaps might have emerged.

For example the characterisation of the role of the ANC as that of `managing capitalist contradictions` and act as a mediator in the class struggle is something that is not just completely new, but runs counter to the fundamental role of the ANC as driving a national democratic revolution that also requires transforming nationa, gender and class relations of colonialism of a special type.

The idea of striving to build a `national democratic society` is also something completely new. What this notion implies is that the aim of the national democratic revolution was to build some kind of a permanent `national democratic society` as historical stage, thus seeking to avoid the reality that the national democratic revolution can proceed to a transition to socialism. This is now underlined by the assertion that the ANC seeks to learn the best from both the developmental states (understood as South Asian states) and social democratic states. Apart from the fact that South Africa is neither South Korea nor Sweden, this effectively shuts our movement out of learning from socialist states like Cuba, etc. The working class has a duty to re-affirm that the ANC is a national democratic movement that seeks to lead a thoroughly revolutionary programme to address the class, national and gender contradictions in the national democratic revolution.

Since 1996, with the adoption of GEAR, there has emerged in our country, a new (black and white) elite consensus that South Africa`s developmental programmes can only be addressed through a market based and market driven economy. This consensus is elitist precisely because its economic, political and policy programmes and assumptions can only economically benefit the elite, black and white, and not, and often at the direct expense of, the overwhelming majority of the workers and the poor.

The driving force for this elite consensus has been a pact that seems to be daily growing, as pointed out above, by the increasing rapprochement of a cadre within the state and the white capitalist class, especially including the black sections of this class.

The critical question therefore becomes how far are we in building a society envisioned by the Freedom Charter, which the SACP adopted as its own minimum programme in the 1962 South African Road to Freedom? The score-card is uneven and mixed. Significant political and social advancements made by our government still remain prisoner to, and threatened to be undermined by, pursuance of capitalist profitability and `lowering the cost of doing business.`

Some important lessons from the current strike by public service workers

It is for the above and other reasons that we need to begin to learn appropriate lessons from the strike by public service workers currently underway in our country at the moment. The SACP thinks it is important that soon as it may be to fully comprehend the full implications of this strike, we need to identify some of these lessons.

Firstly, it is important to highlight the fact that this strike has already achieved some major gains that you dare not underestimate:

• Never in the history of these struggles have we seen about 1 million public service workers embarking on joint action irrespective of trade union affiliation
• Never have we seen such unity of public service workers across racial and occupational divides
• Since 1999 government has never considered salary increases of more than 6%, thus breaking through the ceiling that government has placed upon itself in terms of its unilaterally decided national inflation target
• This constitutes the longest strike ever by public service workers in the history of South Africa

The SACP is fully in support of this strike and its demands not because it wants to see the crippling of delivery of public services, but for the following reasons:

• Concern about the failure of government to come out with a model of the type of public service we need in order to build a developmental capable of addressing the huge inequalities in society
• That the pursuit of a policy of `lowering the cost of doing business` is wholly inappropriate and is responsible for the refusal by government to make a better offer, as it is afraid that granting a higher wage increase will put pressure on the private sector to grant higher wage increases thus INCREASING THE COST OF DOING BUSINESS!
• The SACP is concerned about our failure to narrow the apartheid wage gap, and in many instances this gap has widened in the public sector.

The SACP is however of the view that we need to build on these achievements of the strike by doing the following:

• That after the strike, the Tripartite Alliance needs to engage on the type of public service we need, its remuneration and working conditions, in order to build a developmental state
• For the trade union movement to maintain and build on this unprecedented trade union and worker unity, as an important platform to build working class hegemony in the state
• That this unity underlines the importance of building one trade union federation for one country
• That the type and nature of public service is of fundamental importance to the type of DEVELOPMENTAL STATE we want to build.

The ANC Policy Conference and the developmental state

All the above analyses and lessons from the current strike needs to be taken to the ANC Policy Conference. We hope that delegates to the ANC National Policy Conference will take some of these lessons to heart.

One of the key challenges facing the ANC policy conference is that of the type of developmental state we want to build, the nature of its public service and the kind of programme it should be driving. We therefore call upon the ANC National Policy Conference to reflect on all these matters, for the sake of our revolution

One key challenge for the ANC and its allies is that of the kind of state we need. We need a developmental state, with a strong, democratic, accountable and well-remunerated public service as the principal driver of a developmental state.

A developmental state must at least meet the following minimum requirements:

• A state capable of driving some of private capitalist resources towards investment in our infrastructure for the benefit of the workers and the poor
• Driving an overarching industrial policy, with a public sector equipped in understanding and driving such a policy
• Curbing the power of the market and prioritisation of public delivery of services to the workers and the poor
• A state that understands the public service administration department as more than just a department to lead bargaining for government, but to build public human resources towards our overall developmental objectives

The South African Road to Socialism

The SACP`s last Central Committee some months ago adopted a draft political programme for the SACP- `The South African Road to Socialism`, which will form the basis of discussions at our 12th National Congress and which has been circulated to your delegates. We urge you to engage with this document, critique and engage it in order for you as workers to be part of, and influence the outcomes of, the SACP`s 12th Congress in July next year.

• In SARS, we present a question of Why Socialism and go further to outline a political programme of the SACP on State Power; the Economy, Workplaces.
• SARS is in line with the SACP`s Medium Term Vision, which calls for the building of working class hegemony in all sites of power in society, but especially in the following terrains of struggles
  • The state
  • The economy
  • The workplace
  • The community
  • The ideological
  • Internationally
• It is to these issues that the forthcoming SACP Congress will be focusing upon.
• The South African Road to Socialism discusses the question of Why Socialism and we observe:
  • The current global capitalist accumulation path is destroying our environment, exhausting non-renewable resources, wiping out the livelihoods of the 3 billion remaining.
  • Third World peasant farmers and restructuring the working class leaving billions more unemployed and under-employed.
  • Global capitalism is unable to correct the destructive path upon which it has launched the whole of humanity.
  • A different, a socialist world, based on meeting social needs, not private profits, is imperative. Socialism is a requirement for the survival of human civilisation itself.
  • A socialism of the 21st century will place a premium on ensuring food security for its people, on sustainable livelihoods, sustainable households and communities and the sustainable use of natural resources
• On State Power, we emphasise that
  • The SACP is not, and will never become, a narrowly electoralist formation;
  • Our approach to elections will be guided in this phase of the struggle by our overall strategic commitment to advancing, deepening and defending the national democratic revolution - the South African road to socialism; and
  • Our strategic objective in regard to state power is to secure not party political but working class hegemony over the state.
• On the SACP and the South African Economy, the SACP says that we should
  • Roll back the domination of the mineral-energy-finance monopoly capitalist in the South African economy. The South African economy should progressively expand beyond the extraction of minerals, production of energy and exchange of finances.
  • Discontinue private ownership of the commanding heights of the South African economy, whilst expanding the industrial base to absolve the 6 to 8 million unemployed people in South Africa. An industrial strategy should address the massive unemployment challenges.
  • Expansion of the industrial base should be complimented by skills development, education and training to overcome the massive skills distortions in our society;
• On workplaces, the SACP is of the view that the casualisation and informalisation of labour in South Africa reproduces the exploitative patterns of Colonialism of a Special Type (CST).
• This should be coupled by united working class activism and power that unapologetically takes its rightful leadership responsibility to drive the developmental transformation for both private and private workplaces.
• We need a strong SACP whose primary presence must be in strong workplaces units, and being a "RED UNION", we believe that all NEHAWU members will continue to build a strong SACP.

Some of the key challenges facing the working class

• We need to thoroughly debate and come up with a strategy on how we preserve some of the energies that have been unleashed by the strike and the levels of unity achieved, and redirect these towards engaging government and society on the type of developmental state we need. This should principally include the nature, shape, size, remuneration, working conditions in the public service. NEHAWU has a particularly strong role to play in this regard
• It is also critical that these energies of public sector workers are also directed towards COSATU`s jobs and poverty campaign
• It is also time that the working class must now stop whingeing about being marginalised whether in the Alliance or in key governmental processes. This does not mean that we must not critically reflect on the strengths and weaknesses on our Alliance or government. But whether one is influential or not is not just a matter for endless boardroom discussions, but is about power we have. Politics is about power, and power is struggled for and won on the ground. It is time now that we focus our energies on building working class power on the ground through ongoing mobilisation of the workers and the poor as a whole.
• As part of building working class power, it is also important that we concrete develop broad working class campaign that both include trade union campaigns but also go beyond these and incorporate broader working class issues. This is of course primarily the task of the SACP, but is essential that the trade union movement stays conscious of this and how trade union campaigns feed directly into these broader working class struggles.
• For the working class to make its impact it is also important to renew our joint efforts towards building SACP workplace units

It is through these that we shall stamp the authority of the working class on the national democratic revolution.

On the PSL soccer broadcasting rights

We wish to reiterate our stance that soccer broadcasting rights must remain with the public broadcaster for the sake of the workers and the poor. Handing these over to private broadcasters is a route down a slippery slope. No matter what guarantees we get from Supersport now, we know from our own experiences that all capitalists promise heaven and earth, but once they are ensconsed soccer commentary will be accessible only to those with money. NEHAWU should support this stance.

But also the SABC will have to examine itself very carefully. It is my view that the lack of sympathy from sections of our people about SABC loss of these rights may have to do with the manner in which SABC News in particular is increasingly being seen as playing a factionalist role broadly within our movement eg. The manner it is covering the election question in the ANC; biased coverage of current public service strike; and generally failure to act on the `blacklisting` saga.

However, it is important that as we raise these matters we also sharply raise the question of increased funding of the public broadcaster by government, so that it is able to perform its public mandate and minimise the influence of private commercial interests because of its unacceptable dependence on these sources.

The working class must increasingly pay very close attention to the public broadcaster.

With these words we wish a successful Congress, WITH AND FOR THE WORKERS AND THE POOR!