COSATU Today, 17 May 2012

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COSATU Today

 

                               Our side of the story

Thursday 17 May 2012

 

 

Contents

 

COSATU

Ø  Happy 25th anniversary to the metal that will not bend, NUMSA

Ø  Numsa 25th Anniversary and Launch of its 2012 Policy Discussion Documents Statement

Ø  Busting Schussler’s myths, exposing white excess

 

South Africa

Ø  SACP condemns DA violence

Ø  Court victory in the fight for quality education

 

Announcements

Ø  Gauteng celebrates 100th anniversary of the birth of Tata Walter Sisulu

 

 

COSATU

 

cid:image001.png@01CD17E4.359FF470Numsa Logo NEWHappy 25th anniversary to the metal that will not bend, NUMSA

 Sizwe Pamla, NEHAWU Media Liaison Officer, 16 May 2012

 

NEHAWU joins millions around the world in congratulating and wishing our revolutionary sister union and the biggest metalworker’s union in South Africa, the National Union of Metalworkers Union {NUMSA}, a wonderful 25th anniversary.

 

Presently, we live in a period of extreme ideological and political conflicts where agents of monopoly capital are trying to position themselves as the voices of the working class and ultimately capture the popular stratum. This revolutionary and class oriented union of metalworkers has been a dependable ally and fearless voice of the working class in South Africa.

 

The socio-economic challenges that currently face our country, the continent and the world need the class-oriented trade unions not only to be analytical but to strategise and prioritise in order to develop a coherent and well-organized strategy. We have seen serious attacks on trade union rights all around the world and the emergence of contract work and use of labour brokers.

 

Livelihoods of millions of working class families are being compromised and endangered by retrenchments and reduction of social expenditure. NUMSA has been a colossal and principled champion of the working class that has worked tirelessly to ensure that the workers search for the truth and see beyond the surface. The metalworkers have been in the frontline of international solidarity and have led the charge in the fight against capitalism and imperialism with revolutionary militancy.

 

This is a union that has withstood the global economic crisis which has negatively impacted on the manufacturing sector and destroyed full-time jobs. They continue to uncompromisingly lead in the principled demand for full-time and decent jobs.

 

As NEHAWU, we promise to continue our cooperation with the militant metalworkers in a spirit of mutual respect and fraternal understanding. In NEHAWU the metalworkers have a reliable ally in the battle against the triple crisis of unemployment, poverty and inequality.

 

We wish NUMSA, unity and courage and may they continue to lead the working class struggles without fear.

 

Happy 25th Anniversary NUMSA – forward with the unity of the workers!

 

 

 

 

 

Numsa Logo NEWNumsa 25th Anniversary and Launch of its 2012 Policy Discussion Documents Statement

 

Irvin Jim, Numsa General Secretary, 1h May 2012

 

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”

(The Communist Manifesto, 1848)

 

  1. Numsa at 25

 

  1. I am deeply humbled by history to be present at this important occasion, the occasion to mark Numsa’s 25 years of unbroken and heroic shop-floor and revolutionary struggles for socialism, as the only answer to the problems of humanity.

 

  1. During the past 25 years, this year. Numsa has seen a quarter of a century of heroic revolutionary struggles representing workers in all the factories we organise in, and in our communities, country and the world at large; for the struggle for socialism.

 

  1. The current leadership of Numsa on behalf of the entire membership of Numsa as an organization continues to be proud of the sacrifices made by all our forbearers who build various unions which merged and formed Numsa in 1987. We do so to bear testimony to the fact that indeed a giant was born, in 1987, in the name of Numsa!

 

  1. We remember with pride, Sam Ntuli, Mbuyiselo Ngwenda, Moses Phako, George Makgatswane, John Gomomo, Bimba Manqabashana, George Nkadimeng,  Jabulile Ndlovu, Mthuthuzeli Tom,, David Makgatho, Victor Railo, Daniel Kmubheka, Paul Sehlogo and Vincent Mabuyakhulu, among many others.

 

  1. The revolutionary contributions made by all these comrades, together with the collectives of past national leadership produced by metal workers at different epochs of our revolution, teaches all of us one single lesson: that both the old and young generation must learn from each other and that the sky is the limit for metal workers all over the world. We shall continue to celebrate their contributions.

 

  1. It is impossible to thank all the past members and leaders of Numsa enough. Numsa is what it is today because of the selflessness, sacrifices, revolutionary commitment and consistence in the pursuit of the interests of the Numsa members at the shop floor and the broader working class.

 

  1. This year Numsa is 25 glorious years old. It is a mature, militant and revolutionary trade union. Numsa is fearlessly anti-capitalist and an unashamedly a Socialist union, a real Red Union! We owe this to the members of Numsa – all of them – past and present, for building this union.

 

  1. It is not by accident that even during the greatest global capitalist recession Numsa has continued to grow, as reflected in its membership report to Congress.

 

  1. Numsa continues to grow even as all its sectors are going through tough times simply because many ordinary workers have come to identify with Numsa’s militant and revolutionary defence of their shop floor and community struggles.

 

  1. As we celebrate 25 years of hard work in defence of the shop floor and community rights of our members and the broader working class, let us not forget that every second, every minute, every hour of the past 25 years has been secured through the hard work, discipline and dedication to the defence of ordinary members of Numsa and the broader working class.

 

  1. We are proud and happy, and today we must openly thank all our workers of Numsa in our locals, regions and at head office. Each one of them, past and present, have left a mark and laid a brink, in the building of Numsa.

 

  1. As a union, we are not a company and we do not make profits, and thus we cannot compete with the private sector in terms of wages and conditions of service. All workers at Numsa thus make huge sacrifices, personal sacrifices, to ensure that Numsa survives, is vibrant and continues to grow.

 

  1. At 25 years, we say “thank you” to all Numsa workers past and present.  

 

  1. I can, without any doubt, say today that Numsa is strong and a militant, campaigning and revolutionary Socialist trade union!

 

  1. What exactly is Numsa?

 

  1. From its inception, Numsa has always embraced and celebrated its two fundamental roles: a defender of its member’s shop floor rights and interests and a revolutionary formation committed to advancing the struggle for the leadership of the working class in society: the struggle for a socialist democratic order.

 

  1. As a trade union, Numsa does not demand any ideological, political or religious preconditions for membership; to become a member of Numsa one only has to be employed in the sectors in which Numsa organises and of course one has to subscribe to the objectives of the Numsa Constitution.

 

  1. Numsa recruits and organises its members on the basic understanding that the unity of the working class in general, and members of a trade union in particular, is sacrosanct. Further, as a trade union, numbers, its mass membership, is what gives it its greatest strength on the shop floor.

 

  1. As a revolutionary formation committed to the struggle for a society free of oppression, discrimination and exploitation, Numsa is unashamedly a committed revolutionary trade union. This means that Numsa draws from the rich Marxist-Leninist revolutionary theoretical and ideological traditions.

 

  1. Thus arising from its rich Marxist-Leninist traditions, Numsa was and is opposed to capitalism; Numsa was opposed to the Apartheid capitalist system, and continues to be opposed and fights all forms of oppression, discrimination and exploitation both on the shop floor and in society.

 

  1. It order to contribute to its constitutionally stated goal of a society free of oppression, discrimination and exploitation, Numsa believes that such a society can only be brought about by the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of worker leadership and control of society – and the eventual abolition of class society.

 

  1. Such a free and truly egalitarian society can only be achieved under the leadership of an organised and united working class.  

 

  1. A rich set of values defines and guides Numsa:

a.    Fighting and opposing discrimination in all its forms within the Union, the factories and in society;

b.    Striving  for maximum unity amongst organised metalworkers and organise every unorganised metalworker into our national industrial Union;

c.    Ensuring that all levels of our Union are democratically structured and controlled by the worker members themselves through elected worker committees;

d.    Encouraging democratic worker leadership and organisation in our factories and in all spheres of society;

e.    Reinforcing and encouraging progressive international worker-to-worker contact so as to strengthen the worldwide society of metalworkers.

  1. These and the rich traditions of worker control and maximum internal democracy and democratic centralism guide the union in its day to day work.

 

  1. The conditions of the working class in South Africa today: the reality we inhabit
  1. What is the situation for the working class in South Africa today? What are the challenges confronting Numsa as a revolutionary trade union and all progressive working class formations in South Africa today?

 

  1. To properly answer these questions, we perhaps must visit some of the liberation movement’s important documents and strategic objectives, and determine how far the country has gone towards achieving these objectives, post 1994. 

 

  1. We then must also conduct a detailed Marxist analysis of the performance of the working class in achieving its goal of moving the country away from Apartheid capitalism to an egalitarian working class country, to a Socialist Republic of South Africa.

 

  1. In 1969, the ANC at Morogoro said the following, about the liberation struggle in South Africa:

 

“In our country - more than in any other part of the oppressed world - it is inconceivable for liberation to have meaning without a return of the wealth of the land to the people as a whole. It is therefore a fundamental feature of our strategy that victory must embrace more than formal political democracy. To allow the existing economic forces to retain their interests intact is to feed the root of racial supremacy and does not represent even the shadow of liberation.”

 

C.1. Unemployment

 

1. In our new democratic South Africa today:

 

  1. On average, 400 000 young people do not proceed with their studies after writing matriculation exams every year
  2. 72% of the unemployed are young people; 95% of them do not have tertiary education because of the limited capacity of the tertiary sector to absorb them and no money to proceed with further studies, among other problems.
  3. 68% of the unemployed have been unemployed for more than a year
  4. 60% of the unemployed have either never worked in their lives or have not worked in the past 5 years
  5. 60% of the unemployed have less than secondary education
  6. Unemployment among Africans was estimated to be 38% in 1995 and it stood at 45% in 2005, now the unemployment rate among Africans is almost 50%.  Among whites the unemployment rate is estimated to be around 6%.
  7. Among Africans of working age, only 36% are absorbed into employment whilst on the other hand, 65% of Whites of working age are absorbed into employment
  8. For young people, being African reduces the chance of being employed by 90%, in comparison to being white
  9. Despite similar qualifications, whites are on average 30% more likely to be employed than Africans
  1. This situation painted by the statistics above are a reflection of the continuing and persisting Apartheid capitalist economic and social relations.
  2. We have failed in the past 18 years to address the property question in South Africa in favour of all the people of South Africa.

C.2. Mass poverty

  1. During the Morogoro Conference of the ANC in 1969, the ANC further said the following on the indissoluble link between national and economic emancipation in South Africa:

 

“Our drive towards national emancipation is therefore in a very real way bound up with economic emancipation. We have suffered more than just national humiliation. Our people are deprived of their due in the country's wealth; their skills have been suppressed and poverty and starvation has been their life experience. The correction of these centuries-old economic injustices lies at the very core of our national aspirations. We do not understand the complexities which will face a people's government during the transformation period nor the enormity of the problems of meeting economic needs of the mass of the oppressed people. But one thing is certain - in our land this cannot be effectively tackled unless the basic wealth and the basic resources are at the disposal of the people as a whole and are not manipulated by sections or individuals be they White or Black.”

 

  1. Where are we today, in terms of eradicating poverty, despite all the commendable efforts at providing mass housing, mass electrification, mass sanitation and piped water within the constraints of South African racial capitalism?

 

  1. The UNDP Report 2010 that 44% of workers in South Africa live on less than R10 a day (This is almost equivalent to a loaf of brown bread)
  2. Each member of the household has to survive on R547.34 a month, which translates into R18 a day
  3. The majority of persons that are not employed rely on financial assistance from a person within their household (77.5%), but 44% of these employed people themselves survive on less than R10 a day.
  4. 48% of the South African population, almost half of the people in South Africa, live below R322 a month, which is less than R10 a day
  5. Almost 25% of South African households have inadequate access to food, this figure was 20% in 2009
  6. Because of the scale of poverty, almost 20% of people who head households save money by walking to work.
  1. These statistics confirm that it is impossible to win the struggle to restore the dignity of the majority of the people of our country by piecemeal social reforms.
  2. We need a radical redistributive NDR at the heart of which will be to resolve the property question in South Africa by radically increasing the share of wealth which goes to the majority of the population.
  3. The situation above anywhere in the world would lead to a social revolution. 

C.3. Inequality

  1. The main aims and objectives of the South African national democratic revolution are properly captured in the Freedom Charter, a seminal revolutionary document of the ANC and its allies. A core tenet of the Freedom Charter says:

“The people shall share in the country's wealth!

The national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people; The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole; All other industry and trade shall be controlled to assist the well-being of the people; All people shall have equal rights to trade where they choose, to manufacture and to enter all trades, crafts and professions.”

  1. Again, despite all the post 1994 reforms and aimed at eliminating mass poverty and inequality and advancing equal access to social and economic opportunities within the context of South African semi colonial economy and society, today, 18 years after formal democracy was declared in South Africa we have the following picture:
  1. Whites earn 8 times what Africans earn.
  2. The bottom 50% of the South African population lives on 8% of national income, and the top 50% lives on 92% of national income.
  3. The top 5% earners take 30 times what the bottom 5% earners take.
  4. The directors of the top 20 listed companies on Johannesburg Stock Exchange earn 1728 times the average worker, in the US the directors there earn 319 times.
  5. Approximately 71% of African female-headed households earn less than R800 a month and 59% of these had no income
  6. 58% of African male-headed households earn less than R800 a month and 48% had no income
  7. An average African man earns in the region of R2 400 per month, whilst an average white man earns around R19 000 per month
  8. Most white women earn in the region of R9 600 per month, whereas most African women earn R1 200 per month
  9. 56% of Whites earn no less than R6 000 per month whereas 81% of Africans earn no more than R6 000 per month.
  10. Among Africans 55% live in dwellings with less than 3 rooms and 21% live in 1-room dwellings, whereas at least 50% of White households lives in dwellings with more than 4 rooms
  11. 70% of matriculation passes is accounted for by 11% of the schools which are historically White, Indian and Coloured
  12. The pass rate in black schools is an average of 44% whereas in white schools it is 97%
  13. Classroom sizes in white schools are 24 learners, in African schools they are 32, but in Limpopo, Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga the sizes are between 40 and 50 learners.
  14. The life expectancy of a white South African now stands at 71 years and that of a black South African stands at 48 years, whites expect to live 23 years more than Africans
  15. Only 9% of the African population belong to a medical aid scheme whilst 74% of the white population do.

3.  The share of income going to the majority of the people of South Africa who, by and large are the black and African working class and the rural poor clearly confirms that without nationalisation the commanding heights of the economy, the situation can only deteriorate.

C.4. The dominance of imperialism and white monopoly capital: patterns of ownership and Control

  1. The 1989 Programme of the South African Communist Party “The Path to Power” says the following about the South African struggle for national democracy, white monopoly capitalists and racial oppression in the section on the origins of Colonialism of a Special Type:

“The struggle for national democracy is also an expression of the class contradiction between the black and democratic forces on the one hand, and the monopoly capitalists on the other. The stranglehold of a small number of white monopoly capitalists over the great bulk of our country's wealth and resources is based on colonial dispossession and promotes racial oppression. This concentration of wealth and power perpetuates the super-exploitation of millions of black workers. It perpetuates the separate plight of millions of the landless rural poor. And it blocks the advance of black business and other sectors of the oppressed. This reality, therefore, forms the basis of the antimonopoly content of the national democratic programme.”

  1. The picture of “Colonialism of a Special Type” is quite stubborn to this day, 18 years into our democracy:

 

a.    In 2008, 62% of all promotions and recruitments to top management positions are drawn from the white population, which is 12% of the South African population

b.    Whites make up 75% of all top management positions in the economy, almost 20 years into democracy and they continue to promote each other.

c.    70% of South African exports are from petrochemicals (SASOL), Basic Iron and Steel (Arcelor Mittal) and the mines.

d.    SASOL is about 30% foreign-owned, and is privately owned, was state-owned and was privatized.

e.    Arcelor-Mittal is 65% foreign owned, was state-owned and now is privately owned.

f.     Anglo-American has since delisted from Johannesburg Stock Exchange and is now headquartered in London, strategic mines remain privately-owned and foreign-owned.

g.    The financial sector accounts for 22% of South Africa’s GDP and is dominated by 4 banks two of which have significant foreign ownership:

h.   ABSA is 56% foreign-owned whilst Standard Bank is at least 40% foreign owned.

i.     The wholesale and retail sector makes up 14% of South African GDP and also has significant foreign-ownership, Massmart is 60% foreign-owned, Shoprite is 35%, Truworths is 50%, Foschini is 40%, JD Group is 40%, and Lewis is 30%.

j.     Beyond the above sectors, there is a need to have a comprehensive programme to deal with monopoly capital on a sector-by-sector basis: construction, quarrying, pharmaceuticals, forestry, etc.

k.    The land question remains a problem: The department of Rural Development and Land Reform is still chasing the 30% land reform goal of white own agricultural land; only 10% of the 30% land earmarked for land restitution has been transferred to black farmers, the target date for the 30% is 2014.

l.     The Commission on Restitution of Land Rights has managed to only settle 33 of the targeted 1695 claims during the 2009/10 financial year.

m.  There is no progress on scrapping the willing buyer willing seller capitalist market strategy, despite the Polokwane resolution on the matter.

n.   Foreign ownership of land is said to be under review, but the state seems to be dilly-dallying around the issue.

o.    Housing, access to basic service, education, health and so on all are racially determined with black Africans condemned to the worst services.

3.    Clearly, post 1994, South Africa is trapped in a constitutional order that protects the vested interests of white monopoly capital, now increasingly penetrated by foreign capital.

  1. We need to revisit the 1996 Constitution and place the people of South Africa, rather than the vested historic capitalist and Apartheid economic interests, at the heart of our post 1996 Constitutional Order. Our failure to do so will condemn South Africa, eternally, to hell.
  1. The Policy Discussion Documents

                                        

  1. While we could fill many volumes of books if we chose to write about everything we have cared about in the past 25 years, we have chosen instead to focus on just under ten themes. Thus we have produced 10 Policy Discussion Documents.

 

  1. After the Numsa Congress, Numsa will host a Policy Conference to process both the Resolutions of the Congress and the policy outcomes, and thus complete the work of crafting its policies.

 

  1. Below we briefly outline some features of the Policy Discussion Documents.

 

D.1. Discussion Document 1: Numsa’s Political, Social, Economic and International Trajectory: 2008 to date

 

  1. In this Document we discus the global and national class balance of forces into which the current leadership was ushered, in 2008.

 

  1. We discusses the work done in all the four areas (political, social, economic and international), honestly, and raise areas of weakness that require attention by Congress and the entire union.

 

  1. A reasonable amount of space is spent dealing with the relationship of Numsa with the ANC led alliance and its partners, including raising problematic areas.

 

  1. The Document also paints post 1994 South Africa graphically, with socio-economic statistics.

 

  1. When the global crisis of capitalism is combined with South Africa’s inherited development challenges, we discover that truly, only a redistributive, decent employment creating growth path can lead South Africa to meaningful economic, social an cultural development.

 

  1. Thus we are forced because of what we know in this Document, to conclude that South Africa, 18 years after 1994, must return to the basics of the Freedom Charter if it must avoid the evolutions that are currently raging all over the world.

 

  1. But, despite everything else, we celebrate our victory over the massive threat to weaken the union from the mass retrenchments as a result of the global and South African economic crises – the union has grown to slightly over 300 000 members – the largest it has ever been!

 

D.2. Discussion Document 2: Numsa and Nationalisation

 

  1. This Document explains the political, theoretical and historic basis of the necessity for the revolutionary demand for nationalisation within the history of the South African capitalist revolution and its evolution.

 

  1. We locate the demand for nationalisation properly within the logic that explain why it is impossible to restore the dignity of the majority of the people of South Africa who are by and large the working class and the rural poor without first restoring the wealth of the country into the hands of the people of South Africa as a whole. 

 

  1. We examine the Freedom Charter (1955) and its historic role as a mobilising power during the struggle against Apartheid capitalism.

 

  1. It is evident that anything short of the full implementation of he Freedom Charter can only lead to the entrenchment of racial capitalism in South Africa, and the continued impoverishment of the majority.

 

  1. In this Document, we reject the revisionism, and the confining of the demand for nationalisation to the matter of the mines only.

 

  1. Nationalisation in our understanding and political practice is the demand not only for resolving the historical injustice of dispossession, oppression and exploitation, it is also about the uprooting of racism and building the basis for a truly democratic South Africa.

 

  1. Thus for us nationalisation must include all the commanding highest of the economy such as banks, mines, telecommunications, land, food and food chains, petrochemicals and so on.

 

  1. Such nationalisation must be without compensation as it is virtually impossible to achieve it otherwise. 

 

  1. Numsa understands the necessity for nationalisation in South Africa as the only basis for establishing a united, non sexist, non racist and truly democratic society and country in which all have a place in the sun.

 

D.3. Discussion Document 3: Towards a metallic minerals beneficiation strategy

 

  1. This Document is based on the research Numsa has done in the metallic mining sector on beneficiation.

 

  1. We discover, in this Document, the greatly robbery which arises from the fact that we export unprocessed minerals and import finished goods, made from many of our minerals.

 

  1. The Document spends huge amount of spae and time exposing the global value chains involving the various metallic mineral found in South Africa.

 

  1. More than anywhere else, it is here, discussing beneficiation, that we confirm that unless we nationalise the mines, it is impossible to control significant segments of value chains.

 

  1. The sheer size of the wealth that is created by metallic minerals when compared to the development challenges we face make the case for nationalisation absolutely necessary. At is now, South African people as a whole are swindled everyday out of their natural wealth.

 

  1. The Document offers a sharp critique of govenement thinking on beneficiation.

 

  1. At Numsa we are convinced that South Africa has more than enough metallic mineral resources, which, if owned by the people as a whole, and locally beneficiated, would erase poverty, unemployment and destroy the current explosive levels of inequality in the ountry.

 

D.4. Discussion Document 4: Numsa and Post 1994  South African Monetary and Financial Policies

 

  1. In this Document we examine the evolving views of Numsa, over the past 25 years, on the South African Reserve Bank.

 

  1. We examines the constitutional mandate of the South African Reserve Bank in the light of the post 1994 development challenges outlined above, and we draw some conclusions including the following:

 

    • The Reserve Bank has failed the majority of the people of this country, especially the working class and the poor, because of its fixation on protecting the value of the Rand at the expense of jobs and the creation of real wealth in the country.
    • The SAR’s maintenance of high interests rates, inflation targeting and such similar anti – industrialisation, anti jobs measures are discussed.
    • The fact of the SAR being a privately owned bank is rejected, and Numsa demands that the SAR be nationalised.
    • Numsa demands a complete overhaul of South Africa’s monetary and financial policies in line with a redistributive, decent job growing economy an the overall development of the people of this country.
    • Numsa rejects the privileging of money capital over industrial capital. 

 

  1. This Document uses hard evidence to support Numsa assertions.

 

  1. Ultimately, of course, we rrgues for monetary and financial policies to be redistributive, employment creation based and thus growth and development promoting.  

 

D.5. Discussion Document 5: Numsa and the Alliance

 

  1. In this Document we uncover the history of Numsa’s views and positions on the question of the ANC led Alliance.

 

  1. The Document examines the various nuanced relationships in the Alliance and between Numsa and the Alliance and its partners.

 

  1. Numsa is very clear that the ANC led Alliance is an alliance of classes. We do not regard the ANC as the alliance.

 

  1. Thus starting from 1987, Numsa has consistently called for the Alliance to function as an alliance of conscious class forces.

 

  1. We have demanded that the Alliance, and not the ANC, must be the strategic centre of power. In this regard, we have always suggested ways in which the Alliance should function.

 

  1. At Numsa, while it is important for the working class to fight for hegemony in all key sites of power, we have consistently demanded for the independence and autonomy of each Alliance partner.

 

  1. Our demand for the SACP to have its General Secretary in office all the time must be seen in this light – our understanding that the Alliance is an Alliance of independent and autonomous class formations.

 

  1. Over the years we have come to recognise and accept the ANC as the prime organisation to lead the struggle during this phase of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR), Numsa recognises that within the NDR, there is potential to advance, uninterruptedly, if the working class win hegemony over society, to socialism.  

 

  1. In our 9th Congress we will be examining the performance of the Alliance and determining how we can contribute to growing the capacity of the Alliance to prosecute a socialist oriented NDR.

 

  1. Numsa is convinced though, that without the Alliance becoming the strategy centre of power and placing the demands of the Freedom Charter at the heart of the work of the Alliance, and thus restoring the revolutionary character of the Liberation Movement, the dark colonial and racist forces will triumph over the ANC and its Alliance.

 

D.6. Discussion Document 6: 1994 Democratic Breakthrough

 

  1. In this Document we attempt to lays the for a working class assessment of the 1994 democratic breakthrough.

 

  1. We explore the balances of forces globally and internally, immediately before and after 1994.

 

  1. We then explores the two leading tendencies in the ANC – negotiations and complete defeat of the Nationalists, especially between 1986 and 1994.

 

  1. We explore the constitutional outcomes of the negotiations.

 

  1. We then examine the limits for a radical Socialist oriented NDR, post 1994.

 

  1. Numsa is convinced that the 1996 Constitution, an outcome of the negotiations, heavily privileged property rights at the expense of uprooting the colonial character of South African economy and society – the real basis and cause of the development crisis in South Africa.

 

  1. Thus we are convinced that the continuing persistence of the Apartheid features in our economy and society are a direct consequence of the negotiations and its outcome, the 1996 compromise Constitution.

 

  1. Further, we are convinced that time has come to end the Sun Set Clauses, and to do a though review of the performance of the 1996 Constitution with a view to exposing the extent to which it has helped South Africa to undo its Apartheid capitalist features in the economy and society.

 

  1. We will be demanding for this in all the Liberation Movement formations constitutional meetings this year. 

 

D.7. Discussion Document 7: Numsa and Industrial Policy

 

  1. We outlines the contours of Numsa’s struggles on the question of industrial development

 

  1. In the Document, we singles out key issues around industrial development vwith rspet to:
    1. Macroeconomic policy
    2. Monetary/fiscal policy
    3. Trade policy
    4. Current government developments: IPAP
    5. Suggests what is to be done

 

  1. We suggest that nationalisation, beneficiation and control of global value chains in which South Africa has a significant take are crucial promoting industrialisation in South Africa oriented to providing, on democratic basis, the basic social and economic necessities all South Africans need to live decent lives.

 

  1. Our call for an industrial strategy is premised on our demand for a redistributive, decent work led, redistributive and social development promoting growth path.   

 

D.8. Discussion Document 8: Class and Gender

 

  1. This Discussion Document takes a “Devil’s Advocate” stance and raises tough questions on the question of gender and class, and the systemic an structuring location of women as a social formation, in capitalist society.

 

  1. An attempt is made to stick to a strict Marxist-Leninist analysis of the question of gender and the place of women in capitalist society, thus locating their social and cultural behaviour within a system of social existence that is premised on the commodification of human relationships.

 

  1. The Paper raises critical theoretical, ideological and revolutionary practical suggestions on the question of gender, women and men, and their relationships.

 

  1. The Paper concludes by affirming the fact that only in a social system free from exploitation and oppression, can the relationships between men and women be truly “free” and equal. And of course such a society is a socialist one.

 

D.9. Discussion Document 9: Rural and Agricultural Development post 1994

 

  1. This Discussion Document responds to the National Development Plan (NDP) of the National Planning Commission (NPC), dealing with rural and agricultural development.

 

  1. We highlight how the NDP conceals the ghastly rural and agricultural statistics, in order to smooth over the neglect of both these crucial aspects of national development.

 

  1. We thus reveal the frightening conditions of life in the rural areas especially for black and Africans.

 

  1. But, more importantly, the Paper exposes the critical intolerable conditions of rural black and African women.

 

  1. The failure of develop agriculture and the concentration in this sector of a few large farms is highlighted, thus exposing further why rural social relations and poverty are worsening.

 

  1. The dominance of the MEFC and its treatment of the rural economy and social space is dealt with

 

  1. Suggestions on rural and agricultural development are made including expropriation of land without compensation to speed land reforms.

 

D.10. Discussion Document 10: Numsa’s Critique of NDP

 

  1. We examine the origins of the NPC – the working class dissatisfaction with post 1994 South Africa, among others:

 

    • The adoption of neo-liberalism by the ANC government
    • The abandoning of the RDP
    • The sidelining of the Alliance in policy formulation and implementation
    • The dominance of Treasury
    • The absence of a nationwide plan and planning framework

 

  1. We raise the structural matter of the relationship of the NPC to the ANC government and to the ANC itself, and we reject the effort to place the NPC beyond reach of both government and the ANC.

 

  1. We reject the fake attempt at being non ideological when in fact the NPC’s outputs clearly betray a neoliberal bent.

 

  1. The NPC and its Diagnostics – we note that the NPC in its Diagnostics merely diagnosed the symptoms, rather than the root cause, of our development challenges: the underlying Apartheid and colonial character of our economy and iuts social relations.

 

  1. We reject the migration of Treasury government employees into the NPC who were central to burying the hopes and aspirations of millions of South Africans under their neoliberal management of national finances.  

 

  1. We find that the NDP fails to outline how finance capital will be subordinated to industrial capital, and thus expansion of the real economy, creation of decent jobs and promotion of equality and elimination of poverty.

 

  1. We conclude, among other things that:

 

                     i.        Both the Diagnostics Report and the NDP are based on a false, theoretically weak analytical foundation – in a thinly veiled attempt to conceal the underlying false neoliberal assumptions about South Africa and its development challenges.

 

                   ii.        We find that the NDP is not anchored around the dynamic to destroy “Colonialism of a Special Type” (CST) post 1994, in South Africa, and thus it easily joins the many false promises of development in South Africa post 1994.

 

                  iii.        Thus we suggest that everything about the NPC needs to be redone in order to define properly what it is, where it must be located and what it must do, in post 1994 South Africa.

  1. Numsa 9th Congress in Durban, 2012

 

  1. Numsa is ready to host its 9th National Congress in Durban from the 3rd to the 8th of June, 2012.

 

  1. The Congress coincides with nationwide celebrations of Numsa’s 25 years of existence and uninterrupted revolutionary struggles at the shopfloor, in our communities, in South Africa and the whole world.

 

  1. We expect our delegates to debate robustly all the Resolutions and policy proposals, and to emerge with a leadership capable of leading the organisation during this phase of class struggles in South Africa and the whole world.

 

  1. As usual, we are confident that the Union will emerge stronger, more united, militant as ever and with a singular revolutionary focus to represent its members on the shopfloor and in the country as a whole, and on the world stage.

 

  1. Looking ahead, to the next Quarter of a Century

 

  1. South Africa is a racist capitalist country grown on the history of slavery, colonialism, white monopoly capitalism and Apartheid. Numsa has a historic revolutionary duty to play, in undoing this history which conditions our present and haunts our future.

 

  1. Numsa will continue to challenge the basic foundation of the South African economy – the domination of the Minerals/Energy/Finance Complex (MECFC), with a view to contributing to liberating the country from this dominance, and to rebuild the manufacturing sector.

 

  1. Numsa will continue to argue that the Minerals/Energy/Finance Complex, and the white community it supports in South Africa, are premised on the continued colonial exploitation of black and African labour, and that our historic task is to dismantle this domination and exploitation and in its place, fight for a truly free and democratic Socialist South Africa.

 

  1. We look forward to the next 25 years of class struggles!

 

On behalf of all the members of Numsa, I thank you all, very much, for coming to observe this day with us!

 

Busting Schussler’s myths, exposing white excess

 

Christopher Malikane, Associate Professor of Economics at Wits University & COSATU Economic Policy Advisor, 17 May 2012

 

In Business Day (2012/05/07) “Wages of the unskilled too high”, Mike Schüssler launched a salvo against the employed section of the working class, insisting that if we could lower wages, there would be some resolution to the structural unemployment.

 

For him the continuing colonial structure of the economy and its extremely concentrated power relations, are no longer the main cause of South Africa’s socio-economic catastrophe. He has now discovered the silver bullet to the problem: cut wages!

 

Schüssler’s work can be refuted at three levels: the abuse of statistics, the inaccuracy of his information, and his misconception of purchasing power parity.

 

In relation to the abuse of statistics, Schüssler’s work is replete with the use of averages where these are inappropriate. For example, he claims that average worker gets about R13 200 per month and that generally, working South Africans have relatively good standards. This is an abuse of statistics. In the context where the earnings distribution is so heavily skewed in favour of white people in particular, the use of an average certainly produces an illusory picture of reality.

 

Rather the appropriate statistic to use is the median, which gives the level of earnings below and above which half of the population lives. A publication by Statistics South Africa called “The Monthly Earnings of South Africans (2010)”, reports that the median earning of South Africans is R2800. 

 

To get the extent of earnings distribution in this country, half of working Africans earn less than R2 167 whereas almost 95% of white people earn more than R2000. 

 

Schüssler’s numbers talk more about white South Africans, half of whom earn more than R9 500, than the African majority.  Indeed, being white and working in South Africa you should feel good. 

 

To be more precise, and based on data from the 2007 Community Survey, white South Africans earned on average R14 206 in 2007.  This is closer to Schüssler’s average earnings of his South Africans.  These are his “ordinary” workers whose salaries are “out of sync” and which the South African economy “cannot afford”. 

 

Schüssler’s numbers are also highly inaccurate. He claims that he got them from Statistics South Africa’s Quarterly Survey on Employment and Earnings.  However, calculations based on those numbers suggest that on average, South Africans earned R3 336 in the fourth quarter of 2010. Schüssler may complain that this includes informal workers, but the median earning for formal workers is R3 683, which is really not that different from R3 336, far less than Schüssler’s R13 200. Thus, even based on the inappropriate average earnings, Schüssler’s numbers are “out of sync” and incredible.

 

Once the base numbers of his study are shown to be extremely distorted, it is then easy to dispense with his purchasing power parity arguments.  Purchasing power parity basically tells us how many rands we need to buy the same basket of goods and services that a dollar can buy. 

 

Schüssler uses this exchange rate to compare the earnings of South Africans and those of other countries.  The OECD reported the purchasing power parity exchange rate to be R/$5.25 in 2010.  This means that to purchase what $1 can buy, a South African needs R5.25.  We can then convert the rand earnings into dollar earnings and compare them with the rest of the world.    

 

The R2 167 that was earned by Africans becomes $413, the median earning of South Africans is $533, the median earning of white people is $1 809 and the average earning of white people is $2 706. Once these conversions are made, one must then picture a South African, with these dollar earnings, living in the US.  To say that $533 or $413 would be more than sufficient for a person to survive in the US is plain ridiculous.

 

To show the level of ridiculousness, the median earnings in the US are $3 024, far higher than the purchasing-power-parity converted South African earnings of $533. In other words, faced with the same basket of goods and services the US worker will buy 6 baskets compared to the South African.  But the situation is different when we consider Schüssler’s “ordinary” South Africans, the white people. 

 

Their median earnings are $1 806.  For every one basket of goods and services they buy, the median American worker buys 1.67 times as much. In other words a median American worker is 67% better off than a median white South African worker, but is 600% better than a median South African worker.

 

The poor African from South Africa, trapped in this world of consumption and suffering from extreme exploitation and racial discrimination, can only afford 14% of what the Americans and 23% of what the white South Africans are eating!

 

But Mr. Schüssler may complain that he was comparing South Africa with the OECD and not with the US.  We pick just one country that, according to his calculations, earns less than South Africa, Mexico. 

 

According to OECD statistics, which Schüssler also uses, Mexico’s purchasing power parity earnings in 2009 were $1 116 a month.  Although this is an average for Mexico, we can compare it with the average for South Africa.  With an average of R3 336, which we convert using the PPP exchange rate, we arrive at $635.  But of course the result is different when it comes to the “ordinary” and “unaffordable” South Africans, who earn on average $2 706, which is 142% more than what the Mexicans earn.

 

There is another issue that relates to the income gap. Schüssler claims that unskilled employees are overpaid in South Africa and that management and artisans are underpaid. Once again this grossly misrepresents the reality. Based on Statistics South Africa’s numbers contained in its “The Earnings of South Africans”, we calculate the average earning of the unskilled worker to be R1 264.  The median earnings of a manager are R10 500. This amounts to $241 for the unskilled and $2 000 for the managers. In the US the minimum wage earnings for an 8-hour working day is $1 160, a janitor or cleaner earns a median of $1 956 a month, the median monthly earnings of a manager in the US are $4 948 a month.  Once again, these numbers cast serious doubt on Schüssler’s work.

 

What about earnings inequality?  Schüssler puts up a diagram that shows “working income inequality” to be less than 6, that is to say, the top 10% earners earn less than 6 times what the bottom 10% earners get.  This is simply incorrect. The Statistics SA publication on Monthly Earnings of South Africans clearly reports that the top 10% earners get on average R12 000 while the bottom 10% get an average of R845. That is to say, among those who work, the top 10% earners take 14 times what the bottom 10% take. 

 

Once more this is a far cry from Schussler’s numbers. Alternative numbers from the UN Human Development Report (2007/08), which look at general inequality not just among those working, says that the top 10% took 33 times the bottom 10% in South Africa in 2000. In the US, the top 10% took 15 times more than the bottom 10%.  Schüssler wants us to believe that this picture is no longer true, that inequality is now worse in the US than in South Africa.

 

Let us close off with Schüssler’s proposal about halving entry level wages.  It is a joke! More than 60% of the unemployed have no secondary education and 72% are below the age of 34. People without secondary education and are below 34 years earn less than R1 250. According to Schüssler this is way too expensive for South African business. 

 

The Human Development Report (2010) says that 44% of workers in South Africa live on less than R10 a day. Schüssler thinks that this is abnormally high, because it has been so, and continues to be so. He narrowly reduces the massive (and historical) problem of unemployment to this “extremely high” wage.  Now that he has elevated the wage as major cause of unemployment among the unskilled, may he then propose the wage that will deliver full employment? 

 

Let us be fair to Schussler though. Many of his claims are relevant to the white workforce of South Africa: overpaid, unaffordable and consequently, must have its wages halved!

 

 

South Africa

SACP

SACP condemns DA violence

Mhlekwa Nxumalo, SACP, 17 May 2012

The SACP condemns Democratic Alliance violence brought to Braamfontein by its leader Helen Zille. In typical neo-colonial style, Zille hired unemployed youth from black communities in Midvaal and SOWETO to unleash them at their fellow blacks at COSATU House so that if violence erupts it would easily be explained as black on black violence. The odd crowd of the so called protestors came armed with stones, clearly ready and with the intention to engage in acts of violence including damage to property and injuries to innocent bystanders.

The SACP is convinced Helen Zille is an agent provocateur for instructing her mob to commit these acts of violence that left a number of people injured and several cars damaged. But her agenda was well read by COSATU whose members conducted themselves with restraint and exemplary discipline, preventing a potentially explosive situation which could have resulted in blood bath. What DA had hoped to achieve is not different to what Dave Clive Lewis and Junus Walus sought to achieve by assassinating Cde Chris Hani,  they aim was to plunge South Africa into a civil war.

It is not a secret that South Africa’s economy is still in the hands of few neo-colonialist masters whose interests the Democratic Alliance continues to serve up to this day. The abandoned march was all about making it easy for the bourgeoisies to maximise profits at the expense of the working class. The only reason DA wants the youth wage subsidy to be implemented at its current form is because the state is expected to transfer tax payers money to the accounts of employers who in turn will employ young people but pay them less than permanent employed workers.

In other words for the same job and same working hours the youth will earn less than other employees, the logic is that captains of industry will produce more at low cost, thereby increasing their profit margins. In the end the youth wage subsidy would be a disguised subsidy to the bosses. When the target group of this subsidy complete it’s full circle they will be ejected out of the system back to unemployment and poverty while a fresh one is recruited in the place.  The SACP believes Zille’s agenda is to rob the youth of their ability to earn a basic livelihood by introducing a system that takes away more from them but offering little in return. 

 

Court victory in the fight for quality education

 Nikki Stein, SECTION27, & Zeenat Sujee, CALS, 17 May 2012

 

This morning, Judge Kollapen handed down judgment in the application launched by the Centre for Applied Legal Studies, acting on behalf of SECTION27, Hanyani Thomo Secondary School and Tondani Lydia Masiphephethu, for the delivery of textbooks to schools in Limpopo and the implementation of a catch-up plan for Grade 10 learners.

 

Judge Kollapen held that the failure by the Department of Basic Education (“the DBE”) and the Limpopo Department of Education (“the Department”) to provide textbooks to learners throughout Limpopo for almost half of the academic year is a violation of the right to a basic education.

 

He ordered the DBE and the Department to deliver textbooks to all schools in Limpopo by no later than 15 June 2012.

 

He further ordered that a catch-up plan must be formulated and a copy lodged with the court and the applicants by 8 June 2012. The catch-up plan must identify gaps in curricula and the extent to which the quality of teaching and learning has been prejudiced by the lack of textbooks. The respondents are required to indicate what remedial measures will be put in place to address these problems. They are required to lodge monthly reports with the court and the applicants on their compliance with the catch-up plan, which must be concluded by the end of this academic year.

 

There are approximately 1.7 million learners at over 5 000 schools in Limpopo who will benefit from the declaratory relief and the order requiring the urgent delivery of textbooks. In addition, Grade 10 learners throughout the Province will benefit from the catch-up plan, which will assist them in closing the gaps in their syllabi caused by the late delivery of textbooks.

 

Announcements

 

ANCGauteng celebrates 100th anniversary of the birth of Tata Walter Sisulu

 Dumisa Ntuli, ANC Gauteng Province, 15 May 2012

 

The ANC Gauteng and Kathrada Foundation are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Tata Walter Sisulu this weekend. The first event on the 18th May 2012, 18h00, Wits University Great Hall will be a symposium to celebrate his life and legacy. The second event is the afternoon of song, dance and tribute to celebrate him as the people’s hero. The media is invited and many prominent leaders of the ANC and alliance are expected to attend the two events. Tata Walter Sisulu celebrations forms part of the ANC Gauteng centenary programme to celebrate the ANC 100 years of the struggle in serving the people.

 

Tata Walter Sisulu was born 1912 in the Engcobo district of the Eastern Cape and grew up in the care of his mother and uncle both devout Anglicans. He found the political home in the ANC in 1940. He was a founder of the ANC Youth League and Secretary General of the ANC from 1949 to 1954, Sisulu was amongst the most astute and important leaders of the ANC over the years when it grew from a small organization into a strong mass movement of the people.

 

He also joined the South African Communist Party and was an architect in planning for the Defiance Campaign in from 1952.  He has served life sentence for his involvement in Umkhonto Wesizwe after being convicted at the Rivonia Trial. He was released in prison in 1989 after spending 26 years on Robben Island. After his release, he was elected Deputy President of the ANC. Tata Sisulu, described by Nelson “as a man who stands head and shoulders above us all because of his humility and simplicity” The whole nation should join us in celebrating his life and legacy as the great peoples hero who served the people of South Africa without fail. 

 

Key Speakers in the Symposium : 

 

First Event – 18th May 2012

 

Ø  Cyril Ramaphosa

Ø  Elinor Sisulu

Ø  Ahmed Kathrada

Ø  Noor Nieftagodien - Respondent

 

Second Event – 19th May 2012

 

Start at 14h00 – 17h00, City Hall, Johannesburg. Everyone is invited

Songs, Dance and Tribute 

 

Patrick Craven (National Spokesperson)

Congress of South African Trade Unions

110 Jorissen Cnr Simmonds Street

Braamfontein

2017

 

P.O.Box 1019

Johannesburg

2000

South Africa

 

Tel: +27 11 339-4911 or 010 219-1339

Mobile: +27 82 821 7456

E-Mail: pat...@cosatu.org.za

 

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