South Africa: Youth in Struggle

From Martin Legassick in South Africa

14 June 2013

Abahlali BaseMjondolo Movement Youth League Press Statement

AbM Youth League: Building Tomorrow's Leaders Today

On June 16 South Africa will be commemorating the youth of 1976 who lost their lives in Soweto struggling for Justice, Freedom and Democracy. Today's youth will be told to obey today's leaders in order that we should show proper respect to those who lost their lives in 1976. But the reality is that what the youth of 1976 struggled for has not been implemented as they have wished.

The beauty of Freedom and Democracy was supposed to be everyone.

Today it is for the rich. Rich people are getting the multi-racial education and the poor still have the third-rate education which back then was known as Bantu Education. Rich people get jobs. They have cars. They have nice houses. They can get married and move on with their lives. They are safe.

This is Freedom to them.

The poor have to survive as we can. We go in circles and not forward.

We live in shacks. We live in shit and fire. We are evicted. We have no safe

and easy transport. The police treat us as criminals. They beat us if we try

to organise. If you are young and poor you are treated as a threat to society

and not as the future of society. Hector Peterson, Chris Hani, Steve Biko and other comrades who died for our Freedom and Democracy did not die for this. We do not respect their sacrifice by accepting that this is Freedom.

For many of the youth it is too painful to face reality. Some people just

enjoy the night clubs and watching movies. For some of the youth night clubs and moves are Freedom. Others are using drugs to cope with the pain of their lives. Some of us have given ourselves the courage to stand together by being together in struggle. With this strength we can see clearly.

The reality is that for us as the youth of the shack dwellers, the youth of

South Africa, the youth who sees beyond the Night Clubs and movies, there is no Democracy and Freedom other than the Democracy and Freedom we create for ourselves in struggle. Freedom and Democracy is not just about voting. It is not about being in nice fancy places. It is about being able to think, and do things for yourself. It is where there is nothing for you without you. It means being able to take responsibility for your own life and your own future. It means building a society in which everyone counts. It means sharing land, wealth and power.

We are the youth of today. We want to continue where Hector Peterson and

others have left from. This is how we should respect their sacrifice Tomorrow is ours so therefore we need to brighten it today. The struggle continues.

As the Abahlali baseMjondolo Youth League we will be having our Annual General Meeting in our Movement Head Quarters on 16 June 1976. This will be the time for the youth to choose its own leaders for another year. On June 17 we will be having our Soccer Tournament.

We are Building Tomorrow's Leaders Today!!!

For more information please contact:

Bangeni Gumede: Abahlali baseMjondolo Youth League (079 977 1723)

Bandile Mdlalose: Abahlali baseMjondolo General Secretary (071 424 2815)

Mazwi Nzimande: Abahlali bseMjondolo Youth League President (031 304 6420)

http://www.abahlali.org

Sekwanele!

No House! No Land! No Vote!

Everyone Counts 

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South Africa: NUMSA National Executive Committee Statement

We reprint for our readers the NUMSA National Executive Committee Statement for our readers interest.   NUMSA is the  National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa. It is a very important development and a very positive report in that it comes in the aftermath of the recent strikes and attacks on workers by the state.  We have reported on events in South Africa previously and condemned these attacks including the role of the SACP in these events as well as sections of the COSATU leadership.  The report also talks of a visit to South Africa by UAW leaders to build links and start a campaign on behalf of the exploited workers at a Nissan plant in Mississippi.  This is all well and good but as we all know, the UAW leadership is among the most pro-capitalist in the AFL-CIO and has participated in the bosses' assault on their members' wages and working conditions and has also cooperated with bosses in the firing of strike leaders who challenged their concessionary, pro-management approach.  (See the UAW label to the left for more).  It needs to organize the foreign implants in order to increase its lost revenue stream. The UAW leadership would condemn in no uncertain terms the program and strategy outlined by the comrades in NUMSA below were it to arise from the ranks their own members.

***************

 NUMSA Statement] NUMSA National Executive Committee Statement, Sunday 26 May 2013, Sandton, Gauteng province

(22-24 May 2013)

26 May 2013

The National Executive Committee of Numsa met from May 22 to May 24 at the Birchwood Conference Centre. It was attended, as usual, by worker delegates from Numsa’s 9 Regions, representing our 320,000 members. The NEC received and discussed political, socio-economic, international, organisational and financial reports from the National Office Bearers.

In opening the NEC, the Numsa President reflected that Numsa’s 26th anniversary takes place in the midst of serious challenges in the Alliance and Cosatu in particular. The Cosatu CEC next week will be a very challenging meeting. The forum of Affiliate Presidents and General Secretaries has not been of assistance since the CEC of February 2013. Nor is the Cosatu President assisting the resolution of the problems confronting the federation.

In this Declaration and Statement we will:

A.  Reflect on the condition of our growing union
B.  Outline our approach to the forthcoming Cosatu CEC
C.  Express our unhappiness with the recent history of the Alliance and outline our perspective on the 2014 national elections
D.  Reflect on the success of our campaign on the National Development Plan and explain how we intend to take it forward
E.  Make some observations on the state of the South African economy and society.
F.   Report on developments to date in Collective Bargaining
G.  Reflect on key international issues

A.  Numsa is growing bigger and stronger!

We celebrate our Unity

We want to start by celebrating our unity, as Numsa. Our unity is not about individuals. It is deeply rooted in a clear, political, revolutionary perspective. Our perspective is the interests of the workers we represent, the youth, the extremely marginalized working class and the poorest of the poor in our society.

We believe this perspective represents the true character of the national liberation movement during the Apartheid Struggle, as captured in the Freedom Charter. We see the continuity of the Freedom Charter, from Kliptown in 1955 to Morogoro in 1969, to the Green Book in 1979.

In Numsa we are reminded that the ANC once pronounced how it relates to Socialism. We have noted the following message from the Commission which produced the ANC’s Green Book of 1979:

No member of the Commission had any doubts about the ultimate need to continue our revolution towards a socialist order; the issue [whether the ANC should publicly commit itself to the socialist option] was posed only in relation to the tactical considerations of the present stage of our struggle.

Numsa does not suggest that the ANC is a Socialist Formation but we wish to point out that the ANC in history has never been anti Socialist nor has it ever been pro-Capitalist. Numsa understand the ANC to be a disciplined force of the Left and a working class biased liberation movement. In fact all Strategy and Tactic documents of the ANC in history have recognized and acknowledged the working class as the motive force in the National Democratic Revolution. It is in this regard that we expect the ANC to act in the best interest of workers and the broader working class and to dump anti working class policies such as labour broking, e-tolling, youth wage subsidy, etc, etc, and of course the NDP.

We call for the movement to implement a programme in favour of the working class and the poor
In our view the National Liberation Movement has been robbed of its revolutionary content and character.

As we have said before, the structure of the South African economy remains dominated by the interests of the Minerals Energy Complex and Finance Capital.

We continue to call for measures to support broad-based industrialisation as well as nationalisation of key strategic sectors to realise the vision of the Freedom Charter. We continue to build a solid, vibrant, consistent, militant and campaigning metalworkers union.

B.  Cosatu CEC

Forward to mass action

Our delegates will take a mandate to the forthcoming Cosatu CEC to fix the date when we are taking the working class to the streets to fight for our demands, in line with Cosatu’s section 77 disputes. We will propose to the CEC that Cosatu must call for a stay away on this platform:

·        Scrap e-tolling,
·        Ban labour brokers,
·        Dump the NDP and GEAR
·        Implement the Freedom Charter,
·        Scrap import parity pricing,
·        Take ownership and control of the commanding heights of the economy,
·        Take ownership and control of our national wealth
·        Implement measures to champion manufacturing and industrialisation of the South African economy.

We call for working class unity in Cosatu

The NEC has noted with serious concern that, in the midst of a crisis for the working class, Cosatu is deliberately being paralysed. The mining industry is in crisis and is severely weakened in the federation. This represents a threat to all affiliates. We believe that the crisis is the result of a failure to confront the need to nationalise the commanding heights of the economy.

We are witnessing a concerted attempt to undermine our efforts to deal with allegations inside the federation. We, as Numsa, have been brutally attacked for condemning the leaks which can only have come from the core of Presidents and General Secretaries.

There is a clear attempt to undermine National Congress resolutions on the program of action and also the elected leadership, in particular comrade Zwelinzima Vavi.

We see that the intention is that workers must lose trust in Comrade Vavi so that he can be ousted in a vote of no confidence.

This is our mandate to our delegates to the CEC

The NEC resolved that next week’s Cosatu CEC must:
·        Abandon the current process which is discredited by the leaks
·        Reject any attempt to remove the Cosatu General Secretary in the CEC through a vote of no confidence.
·        Call a Special National Congress to deal with the challenges within the federation once and for all.
·        Undertake a fresh membership audit to reflect a true picture of the affiliate membership
·        Implement Cosatu’s longstanding resolution to convene a Conference of the Left


C.  The tri-partite Alliance

The NEC reflected on the history of our Alliance. The ANC Conference in Polokwane promised that the side-lining of the Alliance would be addressed and the Alliance would be reconfigured. The SACP resolved its debate on State Power with an agreement to reconfigure the Alliance. It was agreed that there would be an Alliance Council.

Despite all this, the reality is that the Alliance wasn’t reconfigured – it simply evaporated. The last Alliance Summit was in 2010.

It has become clear that the only function of the Alliance is to be an electoral machine. We reject that approach. In the view of the NEC, Cosatu’s must take forward our working class struggles in the June and October Alliance Summits.  Our clear demands were captured in the Cosatu Congress.

But at the same time we recognise that the Alliance is only one platform in the battle which must be fought on all fronts. The ANC must understand that its undemocratic unilateralism in implementing E-tolling and the NDP is not in its own interest as the oldest National Liberation Movement.
We will continue to mobilise the working class.


D.  Motsotso wa Numsa – Engaging with the 2014 elections

We reiterate our demand that the ANC undo the capitalist colonial foundation that is the center of the South African economy. The NEC resolved to mobilise and take forward our struggles in the streets. We refuse to be intimidated or diverted from those struggles by electoral politics.

Numsa has taken a conscious decision to defend the National Democratic Revolution through support for the ANC. We will determine our strategy of support for the ANC in the 2014 election on the following basis:

·        The response of the ANC to our working class demands
·        How our demands find expression in the ANC Manifesto

But we are clear: as the working class we are not expecting to meet our demands by any means except by our own struggle

We must now advance a clear campaign with the progressive youth movement to reject an ANC manifesto if it is embedded in the NDP. We are prioritising, as working class demands:

·        Scrapping E-tolling
·        Banning Labour Broking
·        Ending the bucket system
·        Dramatically speeding up implementation of the NHI

E.  NDP

Numsa’s NDP Campaign has struck a chord in the working class

Our campaign for the withdrawal of the National Development Plan has awakened the working class: a number of organisations have come out in support of some or all of our perspectives. Our federation, Cosatu, joined us in being very critical of the NDP. The Gauteng Provincial Working Committee of the ANC has supported our position. The YCL has issued a statement which raises a fundamental critique of the NDP.

The SACP is moving from its blanket acceptance

The SACP leadership seems to have retreated from its initial blanket endorsement of the NDP. On the one hand its latest discussion document continues to characterise Numsa as ‘rejectionist’ and further accuses us of ‘self-dispossession’.

On the other hand, we recognise that the view of the SACP leadership has converged with ours in one respect. They agree with us that Chapter 3 on the Economy and employment does not reflect an appropriate strategy for the economy.

Where our views diverge is that for us any vision or plan that is founded on a false economic analysis, and thus on a faulty programme must be fundamentally and irretrievably flawed.

Numsa remains adamant that the NDP must go

We don’t think it is even necessary to be Marxists, which we are, to recognise that the economy is the foundation of any National Development Plan. So if its view of the economy is wrong, we must start again. The leadership of SACP, on the other hand, seems happy to support the plan on the basis that it is not cast in stone.

Our question to the leadership of the SACP is this:

If the fundamental chapter on the South African economy is taking us in the wrong direction, how can we accept that the plan as a whole is a good basis for discussing our future?

We maintain at Numsa that the NDP is a monumental error for South Africa in general and the Liberation Movement in particular!

Numsa’s NDP campaign has been enthusiastically received

The NEC received reports of the success of the Numsa National Office Bearers’ NDP Road Show to its Regions and the enthusiastic response they received from Numsa shop stewards. The Regions reported that the Numsa analysis of the NDP has also been very well received by shop stewards and workers from many Cosatu affiliates outside of Numsa.

We will take the campaign forward

The NEC resolved to deepen and broaden the program of education and communication about the NDP. Workers are crying out for Numsa’s explanatory booklet about the NDP. We will continue to popularize the Freedom Charter in the course of this campaign.

F.   Socio-economic Report

Socio-economic overview of South Africa

The NEC received a socio-economic report which provided a bleak picture of the state of our South African society. Some key indicators included the following:

·        In 1995, the Gini coefficient, which measures income inequality stood at 0.64. By 2008 it had increased to 0.68. South Africa is becoming an even more unequal society.
·        In 1995 the share of wages in national income was 56%. By 2009 it had declined to 51%. There has been reverse redistribution from the poor to the rich
·        In 2002 approximately 20% of South Africans earned less than R800 a month. By 2007, approximately 71% of African female-headed households earned less than R800 a month
·        70% of (matriculation) exam passes are accounted for by just 11% of schools, the former white, coloured, and Asian schools.
·        55% of Africans live in dwellings with less than 3 rooms and 21% live in 1-room dwellings. Yet more than 50% of White households live in dwellings 4 rooms or more.
·        Average life expectancy of South Africans in 1992 was 62 years.  In 2006 it was 50 years.
·        The life expectancy of a white South African today is 71 years; for a black South African it is 48 years.
·        It is 100 years since the 1913 land act and whites still own 87% of the land and we black people share 13% of unproductive land.

Our strategic direction will not take us forward

There is resistance to nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy both on the advice and in the interest of the ruling class. There is open refusal to deal with super-exploitation of black and African labour, which has been the backbone and dominant accumulation strategy of South African capitalism. There has been a refusal to take drastic measures to deal with section 25c of the constitution which defends the property owning class and its wealth. This is despite the failure of the willing buyer willing seller approach to address the property question in general and the land question in particular, post 1994.

G.  Collective Bargaining

We have tabled our demands in all sectors and have, in turn, received the employers’ demands. Common employer demands are:

·        Wage increases should not be more than CPI
·        Wage increases must be linked to productivity increases

A wage increase equal to the CPI would leave our members with an effective zero increase. In fact, because the way the CPI is calculated favours the rich, it would mean that our members would actually be poorer. And with this decrease in wages the employers are saying that our members must be more productive. More work, less pay. In the post Marikana era, this seems to us to be a recipe for trouble.

The NEC resolved that the National Office Bearers will do a collective bargaining roadshows to Joint Sectoral Regional Shopsteward Committee which commenced on 11 May 2013 to build our collective bargaining campaign.

The Numsa NEC noted with concern the distorted perspective of the South African Reserve Bank Governor suggesting that the wage demand of workers are out of line and are above inflation and productivity. Numsa shall in due course release a paper exposing the lie that workers are not productive. The Governor is clearly taking a class position in defence of the Capitalists who in the last 19 years of our democracy benefited handsomely from the 1994 democratic breakthrough.

H.  International

The continuing crisis of capitalism

The NEC received a report on how the crisis of capitalism has been transferred from the banks to national economies. Globally, these economies, which get their income from taxation, bailed out the banks by taking over their debts. The working class of Europe in particular is suffering from a massive attack on its standards of living to pay those debts. Huge numbers of workers have lost their jobs – unemployment is as high as 27% in Spain. Public services to working class communities have been decimated.

Meanwhile, the capitalist class is thriving. Stock exchanges have been at record high levels and company profits have recovered. As we said last year, we must either overthrow capitalism or perish with it.

Venezuela

We welcome the election of President Maduro, after the untimely death of Comrade Hugo Chavez.

We know that reactionary forces in Venezuela are being supported by imperialists who are working tirelessly to destabilize the new government. We hear allegations of some US unions and NGOs playing a role in this destabilisation. We commit ourselves to act in solidarity with the Venezuelan revolution.

The Numsa NEC welcomes the revolutionary policy announced by the Chavistas that a new labour law, part of which will grant recognition to non-salaried work traditionally done by women, will come into effect this week. Full-time mothers will now be able to collect a pension.

In Numsa we think that the genius of the Bolivarian revolution is that it combines numerous forms of struggle against inequality. The most obvious lies in its commitment to economic redistribution, and measured by the Gini co-efficient, Venezuela has the lowest rate of inequality in Latin America. An equally significant form of struggle against inequality, however, lies in its pursuit of gender equity.

Solidarity with Bangladeshi workers

We pledge our solidarity with the more than 1,050 workers who died in a factory collapse on April 24 at Rana Plaza in Savar, Bangladesh. Those who perished were mainly young women. Many had travelled from poor, rural regions to find jobs in the garment industry. These workers are paid starvation wages of $38 a month (about R380), which must feed entire families.

Super-exploitation of labour is the essence of capitalist globalisation; it is this super-exploitation that creates the enormous profits. That is the ugly face of capitalist globalisation, of imperialism.

Visit of Obama to South Africa

The NEC noted that President Obama shall be visiting the Republic of South Africa. Numsa shall be organising a demonstration demanding that the first black President of the USA lift the Cuban embargo, among other demands.

Visit of Nissan trade unionist (United Auto Workers) from the USA and Danny Glover

Our sister union, the United Auto Workers, from the USA would be undertaking a working visit to South Africa to establish solidarity links with Numsa in a campaign to unmask the exploitation of Nissan worker in Mississippi USA. Our comrades from UAW would be accompanied by the activist actor, Danny Glover, who has demonstrated his commitment to the cause of workers in the US. Numsa shall undertake a joint campaign with UAW to demand that worker rights and remuneration of Mississippi Nissan workers.

Visit of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union’s General Secretary

The Numsa General Secretary visited the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) National Congress in February 2013 and cemented once more the longstanding fraternal relations between NUMSA and AMWU. The AMWU General Secretary shall be visiting South Africa on 2-3 June 2013 for the purpose of discussing international solidarity and developing exchange programs between the two Unions.

Cosatu delegation to WFTU

Numsa welcome the decision of the Cosatu leadership to take forward the Cosatu 11th National Congress resolution to affiliate to the World Federation of Free Trade Unions (WFTU). In this regard the visit of the Cosatu leadership to WFTU on 10 June 2013 in Athens, Greece is greatly appreciated and welcomed.

Contact:

IRVIN JIM, General Secretary - +2773 157 6384

CEDRIC GINA, President - +2783 633 5381

KARL CLOETE, Deputy General Secretary - +2783 389 0777

CHRISTINE OLIVIER, 2nd Deputy President - +2773 725 7748

MPHUMZI MAQUNGO, National Treasurer - +2783 676 6613

CASTRO NGOBESE, National Spokesperson - +2781 011 1137

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South Africa -- Marikana, New Wave of Struggles -- An Interview With Mazibuko Jara of the Democratic Left Front

Mazibuko Jara

by Jack Gerson

Last August, 34 platinum miners at Lonmin Corp's Marikana Mine in Rustenberg, South Africa were massacred by South African police. In December, I had the opportunity to interview a prominent leader of the South African left, Mazibuko Jara of the Democratic Left Front, in an hour-long interview discussing Marikana, the new wave of miners' and farmers' struggles in South Africa, the role of the ANC government, among other questions. What follows is an excerpt from the full interview, which is now up on the web at:

 http://newpol.org/content/south-africa-marikana-massacre-and-new-wave-workers%E2%80%99-struggle.

A print version will be published in the next issue of New Politics magazine.

JG:  I’m here with Mazibuko Jara. Mazibuko is from the Democratic Left Front of South Africa.  He was spokesperson for the South African Communist Party and the deputy secretary for the Young Communist League, back a decade and more ago. He is one of the co-founders of Amandla magazine and the Democratic Left Front, and they’ve been extremely active in the support for the Marikana miners and for South African farmworkers, and elsewhere. We’ll talk about this and more in this interview. Today is Sunday, Dec 2, 2012.

JG: Mazibuko, can you give us a bit of background on the current events in South Africa and how you personally got involved and became so prominent in the South African movement?

MJ: I became a socialist in 1989, in the last years of the apartheid regime in South Africa. Since then I’ve been a committed Marxist socialist, so that explains my long-term involvement in the political struggles and movements in South Africa.  Right now, I’m part of the Democratic Left Front, which has actively supported the recent wave of mineworker and farmworker strikes in South Africa, starting with platinum workers at the Lonmin Corporation’s Marikana mine and spreading to other mines. That Marikana movement of workers’ struggles has thrown the DLF into the spotlight in terms of what it can do to support the workers’ struggle and also to bring a socialist perspective into those workers’ struggles that goes beyond the immediate workplace issues.  That is important because there have been some 18 years in South Africa of a post-apartheid political dispensation founded on a democratic constitution and including a democratically elected government which has been dominated and led by the party of Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress (ANC). The ANC works together with the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) in the form of a tripartite alliance.  Those 18 years have left a number of systemic features from the past quite intact. Firstly, the economic structure of South Africa remains a capitalist economy owned by a small number of capitalists, particularly in the mines and in finance and in agriculture, and a smaller layer in industry, especially manufacturing.  Of course now, there’s been a rise in the services sector alongside a wave of increased financialisation of the economy. 

So the post-apartheid administration has not really challenged the ownership/control of the economy by this capitalist class as well as the power of this capitalist class in general.  There has not been significant redistribution of wealth through taxation or through land redistribution or other measures.  But we’ve seen high levels of profits – super-profits in some instances – by South African companies. And these high levels of profits have been at the expense of South African workers. Workers have been more productive, which means they produce more profits. But we’ve seen a decline in the share of national income going to workers. This explains then why there has been a lot of unhappiness among workers, because there are billions of rands in profits which are being held onto by the bosses instead of being invested in more productive investments or being paid as wages to workers.  Of course, beyond workers there are millions more of unemployed people who are structurally out of the economic system. These unemployed people basically depend on the minimal social security program that the state provides with some elements of a social wage (basic amounts of water and electricity, free housing for the poor, etc.) But the social security grants and the elements of a social wage system are immediately undermined by the economic policies of the state, immediately undermined by the huge unemployment crisis. For example, the logic of a social wage is undermined by cost recovery, wherein the unemployed are expected to pay for the costs of these services.  So the restlessness that we see among the unemployed and the workers in South Africa is basically an attempt by ordinary people to say what’s the benefit of this constitutional promise if it’s not changing our lives?

JG: The massacre of the Marikana miners this past August 16 has received international attention.  Can you describe the events that led up to it, because there has been a lot of controversy and confusing surrounding these events? We’ve heard charges of “anarchism”, and “nihilism” leveled at the Marikana miners and / or their leaders. There have been allegations that the Marikana miners have been deceived and led to murder their opponents. There have been accusations of “dual unionism”.  Can you explain the background to the miners strike and the August 16 events?

MJ:  The strike at the Lonmin mine in Marikana has deep systemic roots in the conditions of workers in that mine.  For several years now that mine has increasingly used labor from labor brokers. So they would hire a company to bring workers on a part-time basis to work the mines, particularly underground.  So that group of workers which were brought in through labor brokers did not have full benefits and were paid very low wages.  So that’s quite significant, because many of these mineworkers need to support two families: one in the mining area, and one in their rural homes in far-flung provinces or in nearby countries.  But also, another factor is that the mining system has taken away the subsidy for accommodations that it used to provide to workers. It is true that these accommodations in the mining compounds were horrible. But now, the mining companies charge the workers for these accommodations in the mining compounds.  So many of the mineworkers have opted to stay in the informal settlements that emerged around the mining areas.  So that was a further squeeze.  Apart from that, there have been very problematic attempts by management to increase salaries for certain parts of the workforce, but not for the entire workforce.  And by the union’s own calculation, that was meant to reward those more critical in the production process.  But you can imagine the kind of unhappiness that this would generate, given that very few workers were getting any kind of fair wage. 

But also: the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), which is the largest union representing mineworkers in South Africa,  had increasingly become removed from the conditions, the grievances, and the demands of the lowest rank of the workers , the most exploited – particularly those who drill the rocks.  Because those who drill the rocks must be physically strong, since they work the hardest and work the longest, and they were not getting increased wage rates at all.  The NUM had increasingly been led by a layer of quite streetwise, English speaking, white collar workers. Most of them had been working above the ground, as mining clerks or other officers in the system.  So this combination of factors meant that there was no outlet, there was no forum, to hear and address the grievances of underground workers.  So in this combination of circumstances what then emerged was very significant anger, very significant agitation, which led to what is called an unprotected strike from the end of July or the beginning of August at Marikana when workers demanded a way out of their squeeze, they demanded a living wage, a wage that would make it possible for them to meet their expenses and live decently. This strike was basically an initiative of the workers themselves.  Of course, the NUM was facing some competition from a smaller breakaway union called AMCU (Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union).  However, to view the strike as NUM vs. AMCU is not helpful, because it ignores the real, concrete conditions that workers were unhappy about.  NUM vs. AMCU is a dynamic that is part of the strike, but it is not the main dynamic of the strike.  And anyway, as it turned out, that strike saw workers wanting to negotiate with the management on their own.  That logic of workers wanting to feel their own power was also present in other strikes triggered by Marikana. 

Continued at:
 http://newpol.org/content/south-africa-marikana-massacre-and-new-wave-workers%E2%80%99-struggle 

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South Africa: Miners Struggles---no job losses

DEMOCRATIC LEFT FRONT

www.democraticleft.za.net

18 March 2013

PRESS STATEMENT: NOT A SINGLE JOB MUST BE LOST AT AMPLATS


The National Steering Committee (NSC) of the Democratic Left Front (DLF) met in Johannesburg over the past weekend. The meeting received a detailed report from representatives of the Amplats Workers’ Committee on current worker mobilisation to fight and stop the retrenchments at Amplats. These retrenchments were announced on 15th January and threaten the jobs of some 14,000 workers at 4 mines (Khuseleka 1&2, Khomanani 1 & 2) in Rustenburg, and the Union Mine in Pilanesberg which Amplats threatens to sell. This is equivalent to 3% of the national mine workforce. After the 15th January announcement, the statutory 90-day consultation and negotiation process is due to end on 15th April. After this date, the Labour Relations Act provides for another 2 months until 15th June before the retrenchments can start. However, Chris Griffith, the Amplats CEO, told investment analysts in February that the retrenchment process is unlikely to extend beyond April (‘Time benefit possible in ‘constructive’ Govt/Anglo talks’, Mining Weekly, 15th February 2013). This is negotiating in bad faith.

Already, Amplats has broken a previous agreement with workers. The workers at Amplats agreed to return to work after their historic strike on three conditions:
i)               No arrests of workers due to conflicts that happened during the strike
ii)             The early start of wage negotiations
iii)            No retrenchments

Workers were arrested at Dichaba and the company has not started wage talks. Instead, the company announced plans to retrench 14,000 workers. To add insult to injury, on 19 February company security shot 13 workers at the Siphumelele mine for demonstrating against the re-imposition of the NUM by the Amplats bosses and the ANC government.

The DLF rejects the Amplats retrenchments and calls on Amplats to negotiate in good faith. The DLF fully supports the decision of all Amplats workers to resist, fight and stop the retrenchments. The DLF calls on government to support worker resistance to the retrenchments. The DLF calls on government to use its power to ensure that not a single job is lost at Amplats. The retrenchments are unnecessary and a deliberate attack by Amplats against workers’ demands for a living wage.

As Amplats’ annual reports and reports from Statistics South Africa show, the mining bosses are milking it from the sweat and toil of thousands of black workers. Since the 1990s, the platinum mining sector has risen fast and has become a bigger sector than gold or coal. From 1994 to 2009, platinum output in South Africa expanded by 67% in response to skyrocketing global prices. This led to massive profits which attracted huge inflows of foreign capital into platinum mines in the North West and Limpopo provinces. In 2001, Amplatsbecame the first South African company to report an annual profit of US$1billion earned solely from its domestic operations. In 2007 and 2008, Amplats paid R29,7 billion to its shareholders whilst the total wage bill for the platinum sector was R26,5 billion for these years. In other words, a few hundred shareholders were paid R3,2 billion more than at least 100,000 mine workers in the platinum sector as a whole. In this period of massive profitability, instead of rising along with profits, workers’ wages in the platinum sector declined relative to profits. In 1998, of all the money made from platinum, 60% went to workers and 40% went to profits. In 2010, this had changed to 27% going to workers’ wages and the remaining 73% being profits. Even worse, these profits did not stay in South Africa. Rather they were shipped to Anglo American (Amplat’s parent company), which, thanks to the ANC’s neoliberal macroeconomic policy, now has its primary listing in London. Even before the Marikana-inspired strikes in the platinum belt, Amplats had been planning retrenchments in order to maintain short-termist profit-maximisation at the expense of thousands of workers and their families.

Over the last two years, platinum bosses and mainstream media have falsely claimed that the post-2008 fall in the global price of platinum has reduced profits below sustainable levels and therefore justifies retrenchments.But the problems are greatly over-exaggerated. The average platinum price since the global financial crash of 2008 has still been almost double that during the ‘boom’ period of the early to mid-2000s, and almost three times the average platinum price in the 1990s. And Amplats has continued to make substantial profits since 2008. It claims that the four mines threatened with closure are unprofitable but Amplats’ own figures show otherwise. In 2010, the Khomanani 1& 2 mines contributed R129 million to company profits in 2010. In 2011 this increased to R234 million. In 2010, the Khuseleka mine contributed R290 million. In 2011, this was R341 million. The same Amplats’ reports show that the shafts became more profitable because labour productivity increased: workers worked harder and produced more. In all these mines threatened with closure, labour productivity increased by 20% for the 2010-2011 years and the volume of platinum produced 30% from 2010 to 2011. During the same period of increased worker productivity and profitability the remuneration of the Amplats directors (just 22 people) increased by 30% at the same time that the company held workers’ wages down and claimed that the company was in crisis. By the end of 2011, the combined annual pay of the top two individuals at Amplats was R34 million. Amplats’ good fortunes have benefitted shareholders and managers, and punished workers.

Amplats accounts for 40% of global platinum production and controls the bulk of South Africa’s platinum reserves, which are by far the largest in the world. Rather than being a ‘price-taker’, it is thus uniquely empowered to ‘make’ the world price by controlling supply – the essence of its long-term strategy. The retrenchments are therefore about reducing production in order to boost the global price and maintain profitability, and once market conditions improve the threatened shafts in Rustenburg will be bought back on stream. Indeed, Amplats and financial analysts alike have repeatedly stated that the mid- to long-term prospects of the platinum industry are good. In its interim financial report (June 2012), Amplats not only says that ‘despite the current short-term challenges, the longer term outlook for the platinum business remains attractive, but boasts that ‘with its superior asset base in terms of extent and reef type, [Amplats] is well positioned to adjust project prioritisation and scheduling to match future demand’. 

Beyond platinum, generally South African mining companies are guaranteed high profitability on the back of cheap black labour and a compliant government. It is no surprise that other workers at the Exxaro coal mines in the Mpumalanga province and the construction site at the Medupi power station in Lephalale also went out on strike in the last two weeks to demand a living wage. The DLF supports the demands and struggles of these Exxaro and Medupi workers.

The foregoing show that privately owned mines undermine democratic accountability, wealth redistribution, a living wage and job creation. For this reason, the DLF calls for sustained worker and community mass struggles to demand and win the democratic public ownership of mines under workers’ democratic control in conjunction with the local communities in the mining areas. The ANC and capitalists may think that the ANC Mangaung has buried what it saw as the spectre of nationalisation. We know that the ongoing exploitation of mine workers, mining-affected communities and the environment underline with each passing day the need for public ownership of our mineral resources: all the minerals underneath the soil must be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole. Only then can production be planned on the basis of need rather than falling victim to the private corporations, whose competitive scramble is the root cause of the sector’s recurrent crises of over-accumulation. There must be massive state investment in industries that use platinum in socially useful products like catalytic converters and fuel cells, which hold out the hope of eliminating environmentally harmful emissions. The platinum sector must be a driving force of a new low-carbon economy that creates hundreds of thousands of quality climate jobs that are well-paid and secure. It must benefit the majority that produce the wealth rather than the minority who steal it, and create havoc, misery and despair for us all in their endless pursuit of profit.

AMCU, as the new union of the Amplats workers, must play an important role in the fight against the retrenchments. Beyond the union’s role, the DLF is aware that it is not union bureaucracies that will win this fight. It is thousands of united, organised, fighting and militant workers who will successfully defend their jobs and win a living wage. It is with the class solidarity of all other workers in mines and other industries, as well as the solidarity of the unemployed and mining-affected communities that the Amplats can put pressure on Amplats and government. It is this united action which must pressurise the pro-capitalist ANC government to use its power by reviewing the mining licence of Amplats to insert a no-retrenchments clause. The ANC government has the power to take such action instead of its current narrow focus to protect the profits of mining capital alongside the development of a class of black mining capitalists.

The DLF calls on all Amplats workers and other mine workers to bring all their mass power, determination, resolve, unity and militancy in order to stop these retrenchments. It is workers’ united power and ability to close down all the Amplats shafts that can force the bosses to cancel their retrenchment plans. The resolutions of last week’s COSATU Collective Bargaining Conference can only come to life through such worker action. Working with the Amplats Workers’ Committee, the DLF is an active part of worker mobilisation against these retrenchments.

The DLF calls on all other workers and the entire South African labour movement to join and support this crucial struggle of Amplats workers. This struggle will determine whether workers can win a living wage. As we saw with last week’s announcement by the Free Market Foundation of a legal challenge to labour laws, the bosses and their ideologues in South Africa are determined to destroy worker militancy for a living wage and to keep South Africa a low wage economy. If the Amplats workers are defeated and retrenched, the door will be open in all other industries for the bosses to defeat the confidence and militancy of fighting workers. The DLF is aware that Lonmin and Implats bosses are also planning their own round of retrenchments. To allow any of these retrenchments would be to surrender hundreds of thousands of workers to unemployment and starvation wages, and millions of families to lives of penury, whilst leaving the platinum and other mine bosses with restored profits and continued exploitation of cheap black labour that underpins South African capitalism.Therefore, the Amplats’ retrenchments must be resisted and stopped with all the necessary worker action, political action and solidarity across the length and breadth of the country and internationally.

Farmworker struggles

The DLF meeting also reviewed reports of the responses of commercial farmers against the 52% wage settlement victory scored by farm workers earlier this month. Commercial farmers are now seeking to evade paying the R105 minimum wage as many of them have applied to government for exemptions. Many are also threatening to replace labour with machinery, raise rents and charges for electricity and water, threatening evictions and victimising worker leaders and so on. This is unacceptable and requires government to act decisively in favour of farm workers and the broader landless mass of rural people. The DLF will continue with its work to organise farm workers to defend the victory and to stop the farm retrenchments. The DLF calls for ongoing solidarity with farm worker struggles. In the long-term, this organisation of farm workers and dwellers must be extended to demand state-led land redistribution to farm workers and transformative agrarian reform as a basis for a transformed countryside. This is the only way to end baaskap and exploitation in the commercial farms.

The failing ANC state and service delivery

Beyond the workplace, the unemployed are also fighting against the anti-poor capitalist policies and failures of the ANC government: a failing state, lack of accountability, poor housing, poor service delivery, anti-poor cost-recovery in what should be free basic services, inadequate and expensive public health and transport systems. These conditions sustain and reproduce violence against women, criminality and other social crises . All this underlines the need for sustained working class mobilisation as we have seen with the Unemployed People’s Movement’s work in support of the murdered Thandiswa Qubuda and the 6th March march to the Moqhaka Municipality led by the Rammulutsi and Viljoenskroon Crisis Committee (RVCC). Both the UPM and the RVCC are DLF affiliates. Like millions of other unemployed people, the people of Rammulutsi are fed up with false promises and failure of the ANC government to end apartheid and capitalist logics and geographies. The mass of the unemployed are demanding a universal social wage of free public goods and services, and employment. Millions of women demand equality, freedom and self-dignity. Sustained unity and mass action by workers and the unemployed for wealth redistribution and democratisation of the economy are the only way forward to win a just South Africa.

FOR COMMENTS, CONTACT:
Mazibuko K. Jara – 083 651 0271, email – mazibuko@amandla.org.za
Vishwas Satgar – 082 775 3420, email – copac@icon.co.za

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South Africa: DLF on the legacy of Hugo Chavez

DEMOCRATIC LEFT FRONT

www.democraticleft.za.net

10 March 2013

PRESS STATEMENT

TAKING FORWARD THE REVOLUTIONARY LIFE AND SYMBOLISM OF HUGO RAFAEL CHÁVEZ FRÍAS

The Democratic Left Front (DLF) joins the millions of poor and working people and their mass movements in Venezuela, the Caribbean, Latin America and across the world who celebrate the revolutionary and emancipatory life and symbolism of Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías. Since his tragic passing away on 5th March, our hearts draw inspiration and courage from his example and symbolism. As the 9 million people who attended his funeral on Friday showed, Chavez represented and personified immense hope and possibility: hope for the wretched of the earth, hope and faith in the ability of the mass of exploited and oppressed people to self-organise and challenge inordinate power relations in society, and thereby be their own liberators, and realistic hope in the possibility of constructing a socialist alternative to the barbarism of capitalism.

His unique role in history was to defiantly and positively affirm the absolute necessity of a democratic, feminist and ecological socialism relevant for the 21st century as a response to capitalism, neo-liberal globalisation and imperialism. Chavez’s public pride in his provenance from African slaves was another powerful personal statement against white supremacy and racism that remains responsible for genocide, humiliation, subjugation and oppression of indigenous peoples and descendants of black African slaves in Latin America.

During the 14 years of his democratically elected and widely popular government, Venezuela witnessed immense socio-economic progress based on wealth redistribution. As reported in www.venezuelaanalysis.com, the facts speak for themselves: “the percentage of households in poverty fell from 55% in 1995 to 26.4% in 2009. When Chávez was sworn into office unemployment was 15%, in June 2009 it was 7.8%. Compare that to current unemployment figures in Europe.” This was reaffirmed by a 6th March article published in the capitalist, London-based Independent newspaper (www.independent.co.uk): after 14 years of Chavez’s rule in Venezuela there are six million children who receive free meals a day; near-universal free health care has been established; education spending has doubled as a proportion of GDP; and education is free from daycare to university. Since, 2011 over 350,000 homes have been built, taking hundreds of thousands of families out of sub-standard housing in the barrios. Whilst the country remains dependent on oil, his government had begun to envisage a transition plan to structurally diversify the Venezuelan economy beyond oil. This remains a major structural challenge and vulnerability.

Thanks to its embrace of neo-liberalism, Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa cannot even dream of similar transformative socio-economic indicators, not for the last 18 years of its rule, not for any time in the foreseeable future. Venezuela’s transformative socio-economic achievements were not made possible by the ANC kind of neo-liberalism but by a redistribute economic policy which included the nationalisation of oil, telecommunications and other key strategic sectors of the Venezuelan economy with the proceeds from these nationalised enterprises redistributed to transformative socio-economic programmes in education, health and housing. In contrast to the Bolivarian process in Venezuela, the ANC in South Africa has shaken and conceded to capitalism at every conceivable moment. Every progressive programme, strategy and intention is either abandoned or rejected by the government in the face of the brutal logic of managing a capitalist state. The ANC has shied away from confronting capital and white privilege that was left largely intact when the end of apartheid was negotiated. This has resulted in a situation where the ANC leadership has adapted itself to the power of capital. No wonder then that post-apartheid capitalism is leaving a trail of hunger, poverty, anger and misery. The wealthy elite, the bosses and their hangers-on refuse to concede a single inch to the urgent needs of the majority. This is the example that Chavez stood against and actively built an alternative to.

After addressing an October 2008 international solidarity conference held in Caracas, the African socialists present there appealed to him to work with popular and socialist forces here given that “Africa was now in a sorry state of its former revolutionary self”. His response was to challenge African socialists and popular movements to reclaim the essence of human liberation from below. As this African appeal and his response to it show, Chavez holds a useful mirror against which to assess the extent to which the ANC, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and other African national liberation movements have long abandoned any hope, belief in, and commitment to socialism given their active political agency to maintain and reproduce capitalism in South Africa and other African countries that they govern. As a response to the failure and limits of national liberation politics in South Africa and elsewhere in Africa, the DLF is a modest initiative in South Africa that seeks to support the growth and solidarity of anti-capitalist mass movements and construct an alternative eco-socialist political pole. As part of its growth, the DLF is critically studying and debating lessons, impacts, outcomes, contradictions and possible future trajectories of the Bolivarian revolutionary process that Chavez initiated and led.

Given the potent anti-capitalist symbolism that Chavez represented, it is not a surprise that capitalists, the imperialist United States of America (USA) and Europe, neo-liberals, post-liberation political elites and mainstream media including the ANC-controlled South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) produced false propaganda that Chavez was a dictator, a populist and so on. Strange dictator he was: since he was first democratically elected in 1998, there have been 17 elections and referenda, all of whom were declared free and fair by international bodies, and most of which he won. He was elected with 56% of the vote in 1998, 60% in 2000, defeated a coup in April 2002 on the back of mass power, received over 7 million votes in 2006 and secured 54.4% of the vote in October 2012. Even the former US President Jimmy Carter conceded that “of the 92 elections that we've monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.” Beyond the state and formal democratic institutions, Chavez also opened the path to the emergence of nascent participatory democracy institutions such as communal councils with competencies to plan and allocate resources, solidarity and communal enterprises, cooperatives and financing institutions like the Women’s Development Bank.

Chavez's problem and shortcomings laid elsewhere. No social transformation or a transition to socialism can ever depend on one person or through a compromised political infrastructure in a self-declared socialist state or even in a self-proclaimed socialist party. Any such change crucially depends on the self-organised and critically conscious class power of the vast majority of poor and working people. The still-to-be achieved socialist alternative that Chavez envisioned was clearly different from Stalinism, as he grappled with how it must be based on democracy and popular participation, and how this socialist alternative must learn from the self-proclaimed ‘socialist’ but ultimately disastrous and failed statist experiments of the 20th century.

The Chavez-led revolutionary process has not yet transformed and placed all power firmly in the hands of the working class. Insufficient independence and autonomy of popular movements, the significant power held by the Chavista bureaucratic and political elite, and problems in the functioning of the state are ever-present subjective dangers. If the mass movement does not swiftly claim the example and symbolism of Chavez and deepen the revolutionary process, there is a real possibility that the Chavista bureaucratic and political elite may entrench itself and constrain the promise of liberation, solidarity, people’s power and socialism that Chavez had opened. The struggle to build a new and different kind of society continues.

Beyond these internal challenges, the Bolivarian revolutionary process faces guaranteed counter-revolution from the oligarchs in Venezuela and Barack Obama’s imperialist government in the US. The same mass forces facing the challenge to deepen the Bolivarian process internally must now also continue to organise and defend the autonomy and sovereignty of Venezuela. The struggle continues on all fronts!


FOR COMMENTS, CONTACT:

Mazibuko K. Jara: cell - 083 651 0271 & email: mazibuko@amandla.org.za

Vishwas Satgar: cell - 082 775 3420 & email: copac@icon.co.za

Brian Ashley: cell - 082 085 0788 & email: brian@amandla.org.za

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South Africa: Fight against layoffs, nationalise the mines

DEMOCRATIC LEFT FRONT

www.democraticleft.za.net

08 February 2013

PRESS STATEMENT: JOHANNESBURG SOLIDARITY MEETING TO FIGHT THREATENED JOB LOSSES IN MINING SECTOR

NATIONALISE MINES FOR CLIMATE JOBS

The Democratic Left Front (DLF) fully supports the struggles and resolve of thousands of mine workers to resist threatened retrenchments following the Anglo Platinum announcement that over 14,000 mineworkers are to be retrenched at its Rustenburg operations. To kick-start public mobilisation for a mass solidarity campaign with the mine workers, the DLF calls on all progressive organisations and individuals in Johannesburg to be part of a public meeting to be held as follows:

DATE                :        Saturday, 09 February 2013

TIME                  :        12h00 to 14h00

VENUE             :        3rd floor, Eloff Street Galleries, 72 Eloff Street,

Johannesburg CBD

SPEAKERS     :        Rustenburg Workers’ Committee

                           Social movements of the unemployed

DLF Mines Research report

The Rustenburg Workers’ Committee will report to the meeting on the responses of workers to the threatened retrenchments as well as ongoing mobilisation and work of the elected workers’ committees which have led the struggle for a living wage. The DLF fully supports these worker committees as a key too in the hands of the workers to fight the retrenchments and the struggle for a living wage.

The threatened retrenchments are a direct attack by the bosses which seeks to break the confidence and militancy of workers to fight for a living wage. This attack must be resisted and rolled back with all the necessary worker struggles in the mines themselves as well as decisive political action by South Africa’s labour movement as a whole and solidarity action by communities and all progressive forces across the length and breadth of our country. To allow these retrenchments would be to surrender hundreds of thousands of workers to unemployment and starvation wages, and millions of families to lives of penury, whilst  leaving the platinum and other mine bosses with restored profits and continued exploitation of cheap black labour that underpins South African capitalism.

The DLF research report on mines, which will be presented at the Johannesburg public meeting, will expose how the anarchy of the market in the mining sector undermines democratic accountability, wealth redistribution, a living wage and job creation. The DLF will use this public meeting to connect the solidarity campaign with the mine workers with the call for democratic public ownership of mines under workers’ democratic control in conjunction with the local communities in the mining areas. Only then can production be planned on the basis of need rather than falling victim to the private corporations, whose competitive scramble is the root cause of the sector’s recurrent crises of over-accumulation. There must be massive state investment in industries that use platinum in socially useful products like catalytic converters and fuel cells, which hold out the hope of eliminating environmentally harmful emissions. The platinum sector must be a driving force of a new green economy that creates hundreds of thousands of quality climate jobs that are well-paid and secure. It must benefit the majority that produce the wealth rather than the minority who steal it, and create havoc, misery and despair for us all in their endless pursuit of profit.

For further comment on this press release:

Rehad Desai – 083 997 9204

Noor Nieftagodien - 082 457 4103

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South Africa: DLF statement on Farm Workers' Struggles

DEMOCRATIC LEFT FRONT

www.democraticleft.za.net

PRESS STATEMENT ON FARM WORKER STRUGGLES

ORGANISE FOR R150 PER DAY! OUR STRUGGLE CONTINUES

29 January 2013

The Democratic Left Front (DLF) salutes farm workers for their historic stand against exploitation and calls on progressive forces to intensify efforts to organise, mobilise and advance the struggle for R150 per day.

The struggle of the Western Cape farm workers is not only against starvation wages but the system of baasskap oppression that has remained since Apartheid.

This has been more than a strike, it has been a popular rebellion and the demand for R150 per day is symbolic of a greater struggle to transform the rural countryside and for radical agrarian transformation including redistribution of land.

The strike represents a huge step forward in the morale, confidence, organisation and spirit of farm workers and farm dwellers.

The strike on the farms, like the mines before, reflects a growing preparedness of the working class of South Africa to challenge the system of profit, low wages and economic apartheid.

Organising amongst farm workers is a herculean task. Farms are separated by great distances and owners prevent unionists from gaining access to workers. They threaten those that take a stand with physical violence, eviction and legal harassment. There is total disregard for labour regulations and the constitutional right to organise. Famers use labour brokers and casualisation to weaken the power of workers. The police have colluded in this - arresting and brutalising worker leaders and closing roads to prevent the free movement of organisers.

Despite these obstacles farm workers have mobilised, blocked national roads and shut down production in a number of areas - in defiance of the police who have responded with excessive brutality. Three workers have now been killed. The responsibility for the violence lies at the police's feet. Some of our activists have been denied the due process of the law and remain in jail. Several activists, local leaders from Mawubuye and CSAAWU have been detained since 9th January.

Throughout these three months of protests and strikes, commercial farmers have remained intransigent and arrogant refusing to engage with the unions and farm workers committees. This is an indication of the complete lack of transformation in the countryside. It is clear that apartheid is alive and well in many parts of South Africa.

The strike over the last three months is all the more remarkable because of this.  But the struggle is not over. The farmers claim they cannot afford R150 per day. In fact, most can and must pay now. The desire for high profits cannot be used to deny decent wages. If farms cannot pay they must be expropriated and placed under workers control.

The government has failed outright to deliver on land reform. They have made no effort to assist workers and have provided cover for the farmer's intransigence. A government that served the poor and exploited would institute immediate radical agrarian transformation. It would redistribute land and provide assistance to farm workers and small farmers to create an agricultural system based on human need, food security and ecological sustainability instead of profit maximisation.

It would end disastrous liberalisation and deregulation policies, provide subsidies to small farmers and curtail the monopoly power of retailers that are appropriating most of value in the sector.

The DLF demands, at the very least, that the government institute a minimum wage of R150 at its sectoral determination in March and take measures to enforce the labour law on farms!

The DLF demands an investigation into all acts of police brutality; we demand the demilitarisation of the police! We demand the immediate, unconditional release of all workers and the dropping of charges! Legitimate struggles are being criminalised.

Finally, the DLF also demands the right of farm workers to mobilise themselves, join unions and political organisations of their choice without victimisation. We commit to continuing the struggle for radical agrarian transformation that prioritises food sovereignty over profits.

For comments, contact:

KAREL SWARTZ  (072) 991 3371

BRIAN ASHLEY  (082) 085 7088

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South Africa: NATIONALISE MINES FOR CLIMATE JOBS

DEMOCRATIC LEFT FRONT

www.democraticleft.za.net

21 January 2013

PRESS STATEMENT: ANGLO PLATS CRISIS DEMANDS DECISIVE STEPS

NATIONALISE MINES FOR CLIMATE JOBS

Anglo Platinum’s announcement that over 14,000 mineworkers are to be retrenched at its Rustenburg operations demands decisive steps from the South African labour movement. Last year’s strike-wave, which began on the platinum belt and spread through the gold and other sectors, has exposed how far the South African mining industry continues to rely on apartheid-era mechanisms of exploitation, and has inspired the fight for a living wage among the mass of the poorest paid, not least the farm workers.

The Amplats announcement is clearly part of the bosses’ counter-offensive to break this new spirit of militancy. It coincides with Harmony’s indefinite lockout at the Kusasalethu goldmine, while the four shafts targeted for closure in Rustenburg have the highest concentration of AMCU members. Yet, in the first half of 2012, these same shafts achieved labour-productivity and output increases of over 20% and 30% respectively, according to Amplats’ own figures.

And this is just the beginning. The big investors are urging more cuts across the platinum sector to restore their profits and roll back the challenge to the low-wage economy that underpins South African capitalism.

Zwelinzima Vavi is therefore right to declare that COSATU will resist the Amplats assault with “everything in its power”. But these words must now be put into action. The entire labour movement must be mobilised and placed on a war footing. Every effort must be made to support the elected workers’ committees - which have led the struggle for a living wage - regardless of their union affiliation. The Amplats workers must know that when they strike, there will be massive sympathy action. They are now on the frontline of a struggle whose outcome will shape the future of every worker and their dependents. 

At the same time, the Rustenburg retrenchments reflect a deeper crisis in the platinum industry. This, however, is a crisis of the bosses’ own making and demands radical solutions. Amplats complains that it is the victim of the global recession and that its profits have been hit by the downturn in platinum prices. But its problems, and that of the wider platinum industry, are over-exaggerated.  It is certainly true that world platinum prices have fallen since the financial crash of 2008. However, they are still on average almost double those of the ‘boom’ period of the early to mid-2000s and almost three times the average platinum price in the 1990s.

At the same time, Amplats and financial analysts alike have repeatedly stated that the industry’s future prospects are good. In its interim financial report (June 2012), Amplats not only says that ‘despite the current short term challenges, the longer term outlook for the platinum business remains attractive’, but boasts that ‘with its superior asset base in terms of extent and reef type, [Amplats] is well positioned to adjust project prioritisation and scheduling to match future demand’. This gets to the heart of the matter. 88% of the world’s platinum reserves are concentrated in South Africa and Amplats alone accounts for 40% of global production. Rather than being a ‘price-taker’, it is uniquely empowered to ‘make’ the world price by controlling supply – the essence of its long-term strategy.

During the boom years Amplats and its competitors rushed to expand production. However, when the global crisis hit in 2008, Amplats sacked 19,000 workers, suspended three shafts and borrowed heavily from parent company Anglo American. Despite posting record earnings of $13.3 billion at the end of 2011 and paying out R1.1-billion in dividends, Amplats launched its operational review in February 2012 to boost flagging prices by further cutting production.  This is the source of the current jobs massacre, but the shafts will be kept ticking over for when market conditions improve.

 The ANC has publicly reacted to Amplats’ announcement with anger and has threatened to revoke its Rustenburg mining licences. This is simply rhetoric. It was the ANC government that allowed Amplats and the other SA mining giants to move overseas in the first place, and Susan Shabangu’s silence on the lock-out of workers at Harmony Kusasalethu goldmine, whose chairperson is Patrice Motsepe, indicates that her outburst has little to do with the well-being of workers. But even if Shabungu and co did see their threat through, the licences would be allocated to another capitalist who, regardless of the colour of their skin, would simply add to the problem.

It is time for workers in the platinum sector to stop paying the price of the anarchy of the market. The industry as a whole must be nationalised under workers’ democratic control in conjunction with the local communities in the mining areas. Only then can production be planned on the basis of need rather than falling victim to the private corporations, whose competitive scramble is the root cause of the sector’s recurrent crises of over-accumulation. There must be massive state investment in industries that use platinum in socially useful products like catalytic converters and fuel cells, which hold out the hope of eliminating environmentally harmful emissions. The platinum sector must be a driving force of a new green economy that creates hundreds of thousands of quality climate jobs that are well-paid and secure. It must benefit the majority that produce the wealth rather than the minority who steal it, and create havoc, misery and despair for us all in their endless pursuit of profit.

For further comment on this press release:

Noor Nieftagodien 082 457 4103

Niall Reddy (079) 5129584

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Capitalism at work: Tragic shack fires in South Africa

From Martin Legassick in South Africa

This video was taken some 30 hours after a fire caused by a paraffin stove or a candle overturning devastated the shack settlement BM section in Khayelitsha, causing at least 3 deaths, with 800 shacks destroyed and 4000 people displaced. On average there are ten shack fires a day in South Africa, killing someone every other day. This is one of the bad fires -- in January 2005 12000 people were left homeless after a fire in Joe Slovo settlement in Langa, Cape Town. Here people are painfully starting to rebuild. Many will have lost everything save the clothes they are wearing. This video was taken some 30 hours after a fire caused by a paraffin stove or a candle overturning devastated the shack settlement BM section in Khayelitsha, causing at least 3 deaths, with 800 shacks destroyed and 4000 people displaced. On average there are ten shack fires a day in South Africa, killing someone every other day. This is one of the bad fires -- in January 2005 12000 people were left homeless after a fire in Joe Slovo settlement in Langa, Cape Town. Here people are painfully starting to rebuild. Many will have lost everything save the clothes they are wearing. Such fires -- which cause the majority of fire deaths in South Africa -- can be prevented. Electrification of shacks eliminates the danger of paraffin and candles. (Yet in some parts of the country -- though not, so far, in Cape Town -- municipalities are de-electrifying shack settlements!). There needs to be adequate water supply, to every shack -- instead of a few taps for thousands as is the case at present -- with fire hoses and fire extinguishers. There need to be adequate access roads built instead of shacks squeezed next to each other with only a path separating the walls. There need to be brick buildings built to replace the shacks. The millions of unemployed need to be trained and put to work building houses. But the capitalist ANC government cannot do this, it serves only the system of profit.

 

Here is a report on shack fires and a statement of the Abahlali baseMjondolo Durban position.

Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape 1 January 2012

As residents of QQ Section shack settlement and members of the movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, we would like to say that we are not happy about what happened early this morning across the street from QQ Section. A massive shack-fire, which started at around 4am, swept through almost the entire shack settlement of BM Section leaving thousands homeless and at least three (but possibly as much as six) people dead. We have a few Abahlali members in the settlement and, as residents of QQ Section, we also have a large number of friends and family who also were affected by the fire.

We therefore remain in living solidarity with all those affect by the fire in BM section and other shack fires in WD Section and in Du Noon. The scourge of shack-fires throughout all of Cape Town's shack settlements and the delayed and uncaring response by the city clearly shows that shackdwellers have been isolated socially, economically and politically. If the government would give us the respect of a citizen of this country, this kind of incident would not have happened. The immediate cause of the fire remains uncertain (either a cooking accident or a knocked over candle by a drunk community member).

Yet the resulting massive fire is beyond our control as residents of the shacks. In other words, these fires are not only preventable, but they are caused by uncaring and anti-poor government policy. As citizens of this country, we have a right to decent housing, to efficient sanitation, to affordable electricity and to well-planned roads. Yet even though residents of BM section as well as numerous settlements affiliated to Abahlali baseMjondolo have been protesting for these things for years, the government has delivered almost nothing we have demanded for our communities.

• If we had electricity, dangerous paraffin stoves and candles would be a thing of the past and shack-fires would be a rare phenomenon.

• If we had piped water into our homes, we would be able to quickly fight the fires ourselves.

• If we had proper access roads in our settlements, fire-fighters would be able to stop fires much quicker.

• If we had brick house and our own plots of land, fires would not spread from one home to the next. If we had all these things, or even some of them, an accident by a drunk neighbour would not affect the livelihood those around him. Shack-fires in Cape Town, just as this report shows they are in Durban, are the result of government policy that denies us the basic things we need to live healthy and safe lives. Instead, shack-fires have now become an opportunity for the city to pretend it cares for us by giving us a few food parcels and blankets each time a fire rips through one of our communities. And yet, even the city's contingency plan is lacking:

• Disaster Management has failed to provide emergency accommodation to all the victims of the fire in BM Section.

• Despite claims to the contrary, Disaster Management has failed to provide all victims with food, clothes, blankets and other necessary emergency items. We therefore appeal to Mayor de Lille to sit down with Abahlali baseMjondolo and other shackdwellers throughout the city to discuss the role that the City of Cape Town plays in creating the conditions of the current shack-fire epidemic. We as AbM-WC are also asking for solidarity with the victims of the BM Section fire.

Please contact us if you'd like to help. For more information, please contact: Thembelani @ 0712604119 Mr Qona @ 0713518483

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South African farmworker's rallies

Denia Jansen, chair of this rally, and Mercia Andrews, one of its organizers (who can be seen walking at the front with a white top, bushy hair and who puts a hat on) were arrested during the general strike on 4/12/12 with others for organizing workers and charged with incitement, intimidation, and participating in an illegal strike. They will appear in court again on January 21. Martin Legassick This rally of farmworkers in Ashton, 2/12/12 was organized by Mawubuye Land Rights Forum and the Commercial, Stevedoring, Agricultural and Allied Workers Union both of whom have been patiently and heroically organizing Western Cape farmworkers against racist and repressive bosses for years. In eighteen years the COSATU union responsible for farmworkers, the Food and Allied Workers' Union, with all its resources, has organized only 3% of farmworkers nationwide. The Trust for Community Outreach and Education was a third organizer. Martin Legassick

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South Africa: Activists arrested for supporting striking farmworkers

This article was written by Helga Jansen-Daugbjerg. She is a member of the Rita Edwards Branch of the New Women’s Movement.  Please send messages of support or inquire about donations or other solidarity actions you can take by contacting them here: ritaedwards.nwmbranch@gmail.com

Mercia Andrews and Denia Jansen are among more than twenty people arrested this week for their role in supporting striking farm workers in the countryside of the wealthy Western Cape Province. Both women are long-time activists in the land and agrarian sector and have been at the forefront of supporting the work of the farm worker strike committees.  They were arrested and charged irrationally with intimidation and incitement to violence.

Are we months away from our world-class stadiums holding those who oppose a regime bent on breaking its bond with its people? Four years ago, my words would have had a ring of the overly-dramatic. A year ago the, workings of state, albeit ineffectual, served as a placebo against the realities facing us. South Africa is a country at a cross-roads for whom destiny now calls. Change must come.

2012 will certainly be remembered as a year of revolt by the poor who have nothing left to lose, and for repression by a state more out of touch with its people than ever before. The Farm Worker revolt is no different to the Marikana miners awaiting death on the mountain, or school children left illiterate by a system that deserted them before they were even conceived.  An echo from the past rings in every burning farm, in every witnessed killing of a Marikana miner, in every child who will repeat the poverty and anger of her parents 20 years from now - unless irrefutable change happens in South Africa.




The change that must take place is beyond the tragi-comedy of Manguang and the ANC. Beyond the Animal-Farm-like characters of those who believe that leadership is a god-given place at the trough. It is even beyond the reality of those of us living this moment. Change must take place for the clichéd ‘future of South Africa’. We are the ancestors our descendants will mock and rail against for not doing what should have been done – bringing about the change.

It is no small irony that the poor work in the most economically successful industries in our country.

Twenty-two years ago descendants of slaves worked the wine and fruit farms of the Western Cape, and migrants came from all over Southern Africa to dig up the minerals. Nothing has changed in their lives except the extreme levels of poverty – and if we do not act, nothing will change.

News of the arrests of those supporting the striking farm workers were met by activists in the close-knit NGO community in Cape Town with a numbing finality. It is as if we have been expecting this - first the Marikana Massacre and now the Farm Worker Strike repression. While Mercia Andrews and Denia Jansen, and the many others arrested this week will have their day in court inJanuary 2013, having spent a night in jail, the reality of the arrests can only mean one thing – we are in the thick of a dark and hard period in our country. 

Like the struggle against the inhumanity of apartheid, the struggle against the inhuman system of inequality requires all our energies. It is being led by those for whom restitution and dignity are the first prize. For the rest of us, we must heed their struggle in the name of change. Change, like a storm, will wreak destruction and pain and loss. But this too will pass and mark the time for a change we can be proud of, for it is of our making.

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