2 February 2019, Richards Bay
The South African Communist Party was and still is shocked by the untimely death of Comrade Cedric Gina, the founding General Secretary of the Liberated Metalworkers Union, Limusa, and former President of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, Numsa. Comrade Cedric was a long standing member of the ANC and the SACP inasmuch as he was a long standing trade unionist, workers’ representative and worker leader. I want to express the sincerest condolences of our Party, the SACP, to the entire family and relatives of Comrade Cedric for the great loss.
While Comrade Cedric’s surrender to death after a gallant fight has truly affected all of us as a larger family, including the community, the underlying hard fact is that the irreplaceable loss of his life weighs heavier on the immediate family and relatives, and has far reaching, short- and long-term, implications beyond the realm of our publicly expressed heartfelt condolences. The SACP wishes Comrade Nomalungelo, Comrade Cedric’s wife, and the entire family and relatives of Gina, all the strength needed both now and permanently to triumph over the great loss.
Organisationally, the SACP salutes Comrade Cedric for the role he played to keep our ally, Cosatu, relatively intact than the worst of the negatives than would have probably occurred when the federation found itself flying in an atmosphere that caused a heavy turbulence. It was during this period that Comrade Cedric chose Cosatu’s founding principles and the task of building and unifying the federation. He thus worked for Cosatu’s continued existence and proved to be personally prepared to lose whatever was there to lose. Comrade Cedric will be remembered, among others, for having stood firm for Cosatu to remain part of the national democratic revolutionary Alliance while simultaneously upholding, defending and deepening its independent right of existence as a militantly progressive trade union federation that unequivocally stands for, and pushes both the immediate and long-term interests of workers.
In memory of Comrade Cedric, the SACP reasonably expects Cosatu to intensify the struggle to enforce the momentary interests of the workers and achieve their immediate aims in the national democratic revolution, at the workplace, in industry as a whole and across all sectors of the economy as well as in the state and public service. The SACP pledges its unwavering solidarity with the federation in taking forward this historical task. In addition, the Party will deepen its efforts to take care of the future of the workers, the working class in general and the entire movement of the proletariat as a whole.
The importance of labouring at all the times and everywhere, in memory of Comrade Cedric, for the unity of workers at least behind a common programme of their objective demands, that is if not yet ready organisationally in single industrial or public sector unions and national federation, cannot be overemphasised. This fundamentally important task should include reaching out to all workers, organised and organising the unorganised, to forge a popular Left front. We need to promote working together through the front to move the national democratic revolution on to a second radical phase to tackle labour exploitation by capital and the class inequalities on which it is founded and which it in turn reproduces, as well as the associated high levels of poverty and unemployment and increasing social insecurity. This should be our approach as working class formation to the forthcoming sixth democratic general election.
The SACP has chosen to approach the election on the basis of a reconfigured Alliance process and therefore single Alliance electoral platform headed by the ANC on the ballot. This is not guided by an abstract article of faith. On the contrary, the approach is based concretely on the necessity to defend the gains we have made since our April 1994 democratic breakthrough benefiting millions of our people, of whom the majority is the working class. The approach is based on the necessity to consolidate principled and programmatic unity to build on the achievements by advancing and deepening broader social transformation guided by the shared perspective of the necessity to move the national democratic revolution on to a second radical phase.
Already Alliance components have, following engagements, agreed to work together to produce common principles and outline the workings of a reconfigured Alliance. This work is now underway as a matter of process. However, future consideration for a working class electoral contest through the popular Left front as resolved by the SACP 14th Congress remain open if at the end of the process, and after everything has been tried, the Alliance is not materially reconfigured. In this regard the SACP is happy with the supportive declaration adopted by the 13th Cosatu National Congress in 2018. This places the interests of the workers at the centre of our shared approach in pushing workers and broader working class interests.
Comrade Cedric was a workers’ skills development activist. To be true to history, our message will be incomplete if it does not touch on this important question of the development of our productive capacity as the South African society. We are looking forward in particular to the Metal, Engineering and Related Services Sector Education and Training Authority, MerSETA, which he died serving as an Accounting Authority member, deepening its work to support learnership, apprenticeship, internship and experiential training of the youth and the workers, both unemployed and employed. Our country is in need of more scientists and engineers in the fields of production process and product innovation, research and development. We are in need of more artisans, technicians and skilled workers in all fields of strategic production. We are in need of more professionals that we need to prosper in the sphere of production and related social relations, both domestically and internationally, including international trade.
In particular, South Africa should make use of its mineral resource endowment including marine resources as a strategic advantage to produce finished goods, including food products, as well as high value added services. In memory of Comrade Cedric, we should not be left behind by the nascent era of intensified digital technological revolution and quantum computing development. And by this we do not mean entering the space as importers and mere consumers of unfolding technologies as well as job shedders. On the contrary we mean, in memory of Cde Cedric, creating decent work to give practical expression to the right and responsibility of all to work and therefore entering the space guided by a clearly thought-out digital industrial strategy in terms of which we will increasingly become the inventors of new technological and scientific solutions through increased innovation, research and development.
