Solidarity or Loyalty?

 Numsa, the metalworkers’ union, South Africa’s biggest union has been expelled from the main trade union federation, Cosatu.  

Numsa, which has more than 320,000 members, has complained that the alliance has betrayed its leftist roots and failed to represent the interest of the workers, describing the battle in Cosatu as one between the forces of capitalism and forces of socialism. Ahead of May elections, Numsa refused to endorse the ruling party, which it has been highly critical of, and called on Mr Zuma to step down over a scandal involving R246m of taxpayers money spent on his private Nkandla homestead.

Numsa leaders have raised the spectre of the union forming its own political party and are planning to launch a workers’ movement, the United Front, which they say is needed to act as a “weapon for uniting the working class.” They have hinted that they could contest local government elections in 2016 when the ANC’s hold on key municipalities, including Johannesburg, Pretoria and Port Elizabeth, is expected to be severely tested.

The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) has grown rapidly to become the dominant union in the important platinum sector. Amcu is locked in a bitter rivalry with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), the traditionally dominant union in the industry and a key Cosatu member, and is steadily increasing its representation at gold mines. It led an unprecedented five month strike at the world’s three top platinum producers – Anglo American Platinum, Impala Platinum and Lonmin – this year as workers have become increasingly frustrated with their salaries and poor living conditions.

Black migrant workers from the country side provided cheap labour to the mines for decades. The profits benefited mostly white South Africans and foreigners and recently also a handful of black South Africans. Poor miners have seen little of the benefits but suffered the most. The migrant culture ripped apart their family structures and caused various issues, HIV/AIDS being not the least.  Numsa is standing up for miners, although we cannot be sure if it’s done in the best way.

Maybe this is a sign of emerging normality in South African politics. It would be a shame if the ANC went more or less unchallenged for another 20 years (look how long it took post-independence India to lose its fealty to the Congress Party).

From here 

ANC - Anti Working Class

"Black economic empowerment has been a disaster because it created this massive economic inequality; it created this class of idle rich who have tons of money but do nothing." Moeletsi Mbeki explained.

South Africa's large working class was under the misguided impression that the ANC was "the party of the people".

"The unions in this country do not understand the political economy of South Africa. They think that the ANC is the party of the people. The ANC is the party of the black middle class. The fact that the masses vote for it does not mean they control it. The policies of the ANC favour the black middle class and the established businesses. They do not favour the working class. You just have to look at the types of houses that the ANC government builds for ordinary South Africans," he said. "If you had a party that was a pro-working-class party, it would not have built these so-called RDP houses that are being built by the ANC government. The unions have all along been under the illusion that the ANC is the government of the working class, and [Zwelinzima] Vavi and them are now beginning to realise that this is not the case." Mbeki said the striking public-sector workers faced a special dilemma. "They think the ANC is their ally but at the same time they feel they are not getting any benefits out of this alliance. Therefore you are beginning to get a very acrimonious environment emerging between the public-sector unions and the government."

His comments came on the same day Vavi delivered his strongest condemnation yet of Zuma's government at a press conference in Johannesburg. The general secretary of Cosatu said that the alliance was "dysfunctional" as the strikes continued, slamming the corruption of the state.

Socialist Banner finds it a shame that Mbeki fails to understand that there is no such thing as a benevolent capitalism to replace the crony capitalism he criticises.

The South African Freedom Day

South Africans mark Freedom Day on Tuesday and South Africa still has a lot to achieve before all South Africans are really free, the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Monday.

"We cannot ignore the 58 percent of South Africans who live in poverty, who cannot really benefit from political freedom as they face a daily struggle to survive," spokesman Patrick Craven said in a statement.He said massive inequality had made South Africa the most unequal society in the world."Such inequality mocks our struggle to build a free, fair and equitable society. Neither can we celebrate freedom when our society is scarred by such high levels of crime and corruption."

He said there was a continued restructuring of the working class into a two-tier labour market.

"We suffer from the gross exploitation of workers, as capitalists seek new ways to enrich themselves at the expense of the working class and dodge around the labour laws." He explained that the first layer of workers enjoyed most of the rights contained in the constitution."They are covered by collective bargaining and enjoy better work security and better pay."

The second layer was of super-exploited workers without any rights or freedoms."For them, joining a union is a personal risk and upward job mobility is an illusion. It is a large and growing army of workers employed in low-paid, temporary, casualised jobs or employed through the enslaving labour broking system."

"The black working class, despite government provision of thousands of new houses, are still located far away from workplaces, forcing workers to spend a lot of the little wages they receive on ever-rising transport costs."

Workers bore the brunt of the recent capitalist crisis, caused by the greed of capital.In the first nine months of 2009 the country lost 959 000 jobs.

Craven said the only way for workers, their families and communities to win real and total freedom was for them to get organised in strong, fighting trade unions.And while Socialist Banner fully supports the efforts of the working class to unionize and resist the encroachments of capitalism , we need to heed the observations of Karl Marx and qualify the limits of trade unionism . Socialist Banner reminds the South African worker that only socialism will bring true emancipation from wage slavery and free the working class from capitalist exploitation.

"...the working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate working of these everyday struggles. They ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects, but not with the causes of those effects; that they are retarding the downward movement, but not changing its direction; that they are applying palliatives, not curing the malady. They ought, therefore, not to be exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly springing up from the never ceasing encroachments of capital or changes of the market. They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms necessary for an economical reconstruction of society. Instead of the conservative motto: “A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: “Abolition of the wages system! "

Riches thru the labour of others

Socialist Banner has said it , now COSATU says it .


"the black bourgeoisie benefits on the sweat of workers through BEE companies."

Politics of Poverty

It has come to pass that many countries in Africa that have adopted the 50 percent plus one presidential vote (Constitutions) are being engulfed in political instabilities whenever the political opposition fails to win an outright majority. We saw this happening in Kenya and Zimbabwe. Presidential elections in Africa are conducted under corrupt means—vast amounts of tax payers’ money are wasted in order to dupe the voters. Political hooligans and thugs are employed to woo the voters. Ethnic and tribal loyalties are manipulated during general elections.

The judiciary and electoral commissions cannot be trusted enough (transparent) by the political opposition and the Western election observers. The infighting, tensions anddivisions inside the ANC may only help to highlight the gullibility of politicaltransparency in South Africa. The judiciary feels that Jacob Zumu must face seriouscriminal offences, whereas the ANC supporters and COSATU believe the judiciary is playing games.

The recent outbreaks of xenophobia attacks against foreigners is not a surprise to theWSM—indigenous blacks in South Africa are living under difficult times.Unemployment and urban poverty are on the increase in South Africa.

It is a fact that South Africa is a relatively developed country, but it is surprising tonote that indigenous blacks are experiencing the vicissitudes of urban poverty and squalor.

Economic development brings with it unforeseen social and economic problems.Economic and social reforms are everywhere failing to bridge the gap between the rich and poor. Social uprisings, student riots and ethnic protests have come to epitomise the character of political consciousness in less developed countries.

It is quite evident that the dilemma of land distribution (indiginisation) is so rife in Africa where globalisation has entailed the massive exploitation of idle natural resources (oil and mineral reserves). The recent increase in oil and food prices combined with the so-called “credit crunch” has led many African countries to experiment with the production of biofuels. The production of wheat and sugar cane to make biofuels will be a death sentence in Africa in the sense that it will mean sacrificing the lives of innocent poor workers and peasants who are already experiencing hunger and poverty. Nobody can deny the fact that global warming is taking place in Africa, but what is difficult to accept is whether African political statesmen have the ability and ingenuity to weight the scientific arguments being propounded to arrest the effect of global warming on economic development as such.

The dilemma of income inequality is generally greater in Africa compared with western Europe. Extreme poverty engenders widespread hunger, malnutrition, lack of clean water, death from preventable diseases, inadequate shelter, illiteracy and other less obvious inequalities. The poor have no bargaining power—they have no importance among foreign governments and corporations. A world of free access for all and common ownership is the only way to eliminate poverty.

K. MULENGA, Zambia