Press Statement on the Living wage
UPM media
South Africa is one of - if not the most
unequal country in the world. More than two decades of ANC rule has entrenched
the wealth of the few at the expense of the black majority. We are poor, work
in low paid jobs and denied our land, decent education and other services that could
contribute to ensuring a life of dignity.
This government conspiring with the bosses,
locally and internationally have ensured that democracy is not a tool to
overcome the legacy of oppression and exploitation but is a mirage used to
confuse and disorganise our people.
Now as capitalism faces one of its deepest crises, as the South African economy stagnates with the rest of the world economy, the parasites of international capitalism are threatening to downgrade South Africa’s sovereign debt rating to junk unless the government implements even harsher reforms to make the working class super-exploitable.
They want to take the right to strike and other weapons won through decades of struggle and make it toothless, They want the government to sell off more of the ‘family silver’, they want our corrupt government to comply with ALL the diktats of the profit mongers. In return to buy the working class’ compliance they offer crumbs.
The proposed minimum wage of R3 500 is the
so-called inducement to sell ourselves into meek and passive hewers of wood and
drawers of water menial drudges; labourers. This is a disgrace.
The ANC government
once again demonstrates as they did when they killed the striking Marikana
workers and as they always do when the poor and unemployed protest, which side
of the class divide they stand. They are the agents of a predatory bourgeoisie.
We reject this with the absolute contempt it deserves. What makes this even more
disgusting is that the poorest and most defenseless workers, namely, domestic
and agricultural workers will be excluded.
In the face of the constant attacks on workers to drive down wages, this minimum wage offers almost nothing to the majority of those in employment. And what guarantee with this dysfunctional state that cannot even deliver text books to our schools would there be that this law would be policed. Currently the bosses are employing migrant workers and other vulnerable workers below the determined rate. Just look at what is happening on our farms.
We call on all formations of black workers,
the unemployed, the poor to unite and campaign for a living wage for all.
Already our sisters and brothers on the mines have declared R12 500 as a
minimum wage. Let us join this fight for a living wage for a living basic
income grant for the 9 million unemployed.
Let us unite and fight against the new jobs blood bath. Let us bring the university and high school students into a common struggle for free decolonized education as the same struggle.
After all an injury to one is an injury to all.
We are calling for our people to come together in a People’s Assembly around the following clear demands:
Minimum wage of R12500
Stop all the retrenchments
End to outsourcing and casualization
Income Basic Grant
Free Quality Decolonised Education
Issued by;
Unemployed People's Movement - Grahamstown
Alternative Information Development Center - Cape Town
Progressive Youth Movement - Cape Town
Unemployed People's Movement - Free State
Unemployed People's Movement - KwaZulu Natal ( The only province with a white surname)
Ntinga Ntaba kaNdoda - Kieskamahoek
Unemployed People's Movement - Port Alfred
United Front - Eastern Cape Province