SACP Statement For May Day 2003

30 April 2003

Covering - assessment of progress since 1994, huge problems facing SA workers, the Growth and Development Summit, recent developments regarding HIV/AIDS, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Iraq.

Approaching the first 10 years of freedom in our country – how do workers assess the situation?We celebrate this May Day with a little less than one year to go to 10 years of freedom in our country. Have things got better? Have things got worse? Above all, what are the lessons, and what are the challenges?

We have heard many opinions on these matters. Tony Leon says things have basically got worse since 1994. Tony Leon represents those who are dreaming of a better past. Big business says many things have improved since 1994. They agree with government, they say the economic fundamentals are in place. The opinion polls that measure "business confidence" show a steady rise.

Of course, the polls never bother to measure "worker confidence". So what do workers think?

The SACP’s perspective

Since 1994, the SACP as a loyal, active, but also independent party of the working class has sought to analyse our situation – not from the perspective of "potential investors", not from the perspective of tourists, not from the perspective of "how foreign bankers will see us", not from the perspective of the Joburg Securities Exchange, not from the perspective of the bourgeoisie, or those who aspire to become part of the bourgeoisie.

We have sought to understand our reality from the perspective of the workers and the poor.

If we occupy this trench, and if we are to be honest, then we think that we must admit that things have got both immensely better since 1994, AND also, perhaps, worse in some respects.

Things have got better, because two-thirds of South Africans have voted (three times over) for a government of the people, led by the ANC, and supported by its alliance partners, the SACP and COSATU.

Things have sometimes got worse – not because of the ANC government – but because we live in a world and in a country still dominated, economically, by capitalism. Capitalism is a cruel, heartless, oppressive system – it has little regard for working people, for poor people, for Third World people, whether in Iraq, Palestine, or South Africa.

Huge changes

Since 1994, we have built more than a million houses for poor people. We have supplied safe drinking water to millions. We have introduced the Labour Relations Act, and Basic Conditions of Employment, we have laid down minimum wages for domestic workers and farm-workers. We have introduced a single education system for all, black and white. We have deracialised pensions, we have introduced a Child Support Grant, and we are busying extending the age limit.

Thanks to SACP and COSATU campaigns, we have also won the commitment to implement free basic levels of water and electricity to poor households.

Above all, through our struggles, we are building a united, non-racial, democratic South Africa in which, never again, should anyone ever have to call some-one else, "baas" or "miesies".

But huge problems

But in the midst of building this new South Africa, over one million workers have lost their jobs in the formal sector.

As we have been constructing a democratic South Africa, the number of unemployed has risen from 2 million to a shocking 4 million.

As we struggle to build a non-racial South Africa, what do the government figures tell us? Between 1995 and 2000:

• The average African household income fell by 19%, to R26 000 a year
• Average white household incomes rose by 16%, to R158 000 a year

Why are these shocking things happening? They are happening because the capitalist system isn’t just a spectator, passively watching us trying to build a new, united, non-racial, democratic South Africa that belongs to all who live in it.

We introduce the Basic Conditions of Employment and the LRA. What do the capitalists do? They retrench, they casualise, they contract out. They do their best to minimise the number of workers who can actually enjoy their hard-won rights. They displace workers with machines. After all, machines aren’t covered under the LRA or BCEA.

We are also witnessing what is tantamount to blatant defiance of the law by farmers to implement the sectoral determination on a minimum wage and conditions of service. One of the big challenges we have is the organisation and mobilisation of vulnerable workers, particularly the farmworkers and the domestic workers in order to ensure that government laws are implemented. Later this year the SACP intends to take up this matter vigorously, and at the same time focusing on other vulnerable workers – those who are casualised, outsourced and facing retrenchments. In fact under capitalism, and currently in our country, all workers are vulnerable!

Does this mean we should not have introduced the LRA and BCEA? That we should have, as the bosses say, a "more flexible" labour market? Absolutely no! It means we have to find ways to force the bosses to comply with legislation, to retain jobs, to hire more workers, to be more labour intensive, or face the combined power of unions and government.

The bosses must bend! Flexible bosses, yes! Flexible labour markets, no! Let us intensify our mobilisation to pressurise the bosses. Mobilisation around the GDS is an appropriate starting point – around issues of effective strategy for jobs and poverty eradication.

Growth and Development Summit

It is precisely because of all these successes AND problems, that the SACP and COSATU proposed a Growth and Development Summit, over a year ago at the Ekurhuleni Alliance Summit. We are very pleased that we are now moving towards such a summit – scheduled for June 7th.

Of course, a single Summit isn’t going to solve all of our problems. But this forthcoming Summit presents our country with the opportunity of developing a common approach to key challenges.

In his February State of Nation Address, the President, cde Thabo Mbeki said that our formal economy has notched up some important gains.

But cde Mbeki was quick to add that: "there are many in our society who are unable to benefit directly from whatever our economy is able to offer. This reflects the structural fault in our economy, as a result of which we have a dual economy and society. The one is modern and relatively well developed. The other is characterised by underdevelopment and an entrenched crisis of poverty."

The SACP fully supports this perspective, and we add the following key observation. The so-called good performance of the "formal" economy (the pole that is modern and relatively well developed) is often the very thing that is causing ongoing underdevelopment and an entrenched crisis of poverty. We are not just dealing with the left-overs of apartheid. We are dealing with something that is being reproduced right now.

Therefore, it is critical that the Growth and Development Summit doesn’t just think that "business as usual, for business" is good enough. We have to address the virus inside the system. While special projects for the poor – like public works programmes – are important, we cannot treat unemployment and poverty as if they were unfortunate accidents, "back-log" from the past.

The following are key issues that the GDS must address:

• Achieving much higher levels of labour intensity in our economy.
• Labour intensity should not be confined as a task only to more or less marginal government-run public works programmes. Much greater pressure should be placed on private sector corporations, especially those involved in infrastructure construction. Thmust use the most labour-intensive methods possible. Government’s proposed multi-billion rand infrastructure development programme is a useful leverage to achieve such transformation. A central factor in deciding on the award of tenders must be labour intensity. Is the building constructor, or the road constructor just conducting business as usual? If so, then they musn’t get the contract. While full employment in the formal sector is a laudable objective, with unemployment levels around 40%, it is a very distant objective. We must avoid the illusion that un- and under-employment are merely temporary challenges that can be addressed with short-term social welfare measures. Therefore, we must develop strategies for sustainable livelihoods even if people do not have formal jobs in the capitalist sector. This means:
• We must actively encourage alternative forms of ownership, production and marketing – especially co-operatives. There is a fairy-tale that the only way to economic success is the capitalist way. But all over South Africa, in a growing movement of work and poor, we are proving this to be a lie. In Limpopo Province, on citrus farms; in Eastern Cape in pineapple production and marketing co-ops; in KwaMashu in recycling projects; in Ivory Park, in Khayelitsha in food gardens - working people are running co-operatives without capitalist bosses. Profits are shared, or re-invested. The workers are the owners, the owners are the workers. The GDS must commit government, the financial sector and all other key players to create conditions for the flourishing of this mass cooperative sector in our country.
• We must avoid seeing social security measures as "unfortunate" but "perhaps necessary", "short-term", "dependency-creating" initiatives. Rather, we must use various social security measures as active catalysers for sustainable livelihoods – a fare for nsport to access training, seed money for a household-based vegetable garden, a monthly input into a community recycling co-operative.
• The important resolutions of last year’s Financial Sector Summit must be embodied in the wider Growth and Development Summit, and they must be implemented. The SACP is proud to be able report to all of those who have been supporting our Red October Ficial Sector campaign that some real progress is being made on key fronts. Comrades will remember that one of the key demands of the campaign was for the regulation of the Credit Bureaus. Until we launched our campaign, the Credit Bureaus were faceless, and unaccountable entities with the power of life and death over South African consumers. You could find yourself black-listed for years and years, without knowing why, and without having any recourse. We are pleased to report that government is in the process of pushing through regulations to control the Credit Bureaus. If you are listed, the Bureaus will have to explain to you, at their own cost, the reasons for the listing. If they cannot do this satisfactorily, they will be obliged to remove your name within days. Of course, the Credit Bureaus are not going to take this lying down. We call on all formations to maintain the pressure.
• The dual economy and dual society are also constantly reproduced by the location of housing, commercial activities and industry. A sustainable growth and development strategy must address this challenge systemically. Well intentioned mass housing progres have, generally, been located in the same distant townships, with little commercial and industrial development. Transport costs have escalated, and the danger of perpetuating rather than overcoming marginalisation is sometimes deepened. The GDS must develop strategies to densify our towns and cities, we must have multi-income suburbs where rich and poor live much closer together, we must bring shops and factories closer to the poor, and the poor closer to shops and factories
• The role of the public sector, including key parastatals, remains absolutely critical to an effective South African growth and development strategy – and indeed to growth and development within our continent. The public sector provides our country wit critical means of driving a long-term strategic approach to growth and development, with sectors that can be relatively insulated from the short-term objective of profit maximisation. Privatisation exposes our economy to the short-term profit-maximising vagaries of global markets, influenced, in turn, by many things beyond our control – fluctuations in the Rand’s relative value, the SARS epidemic, or the invasion of Iraq. We were able to instruct Telkom (before we sold even more of it on Wall Street) to roll out phone connections to poor households. And we succeeded, with a near world record – 2,67 million phone connections in three years. But at the same time we told Telkom to get ready for privatisation and liberalisation. So Telkom rolled out 2,67 million phone connections, AND it put up the price of local domestic calls. The result? Poor households could no longer afford Telkom services. And so, 2 million phones were cut-off! Another world record! We must stop being shy about the public sector. We must build it and protect it, and the GDS must resolve on this.

The SACP calls upon the convening of socialist, workers’ and people’s forums throughout our locals and districts during the month of May, to engage the workers and our people on these perspectives on the GDS. We must not allow the GDS to be a leadership or boardroom issue, but it must be driven by the organised power of the working class. Both before and after the GDS we need the organised muscle of the working class to ensure that even agreements reached at this Summit are implemented. This should be our programme of action for the month of May!

HIV/AIDS

A growth and development strategy cannot be seen in isolation from the HIV/AIDS pandemic within our country. Perhaps as many as 900 South Africans are dying, daily, of HIV/AIDS related diseases.

The SACP welcomed last year’s April announcement by government on a comprehensive approach to HIV/AIDS, including a comprehensive treatment policy. Unfortunately, there have been long delays in implementing an effective public health anti-retroviral treatment plan. The SACP cannot understand why there has been so much delay. We call on government, in particular, to move forward with its commitment in this respect. We call on all South Africans to unite together in action to confront this enormous challenge.

Iraq

The SACP joined hundreds of thousands of South Africans, and millions world-wide, in the campaign to stop the illegal, barbaric invasion of Iraq by the US and the UK. We failed to stop the invasion, but our actions exposed the imperialist and illegitimate character of this invasion.

But the struggle is not over. The US has militarily defeated the regime of Saddam Hussein, as it was always bound to do. But will we let Bush and Blair now win the peace? Will we allow them to install a compliant regime in Bagdhad? Will we allow them to control the oil-rich Middle East?

We must continue to mobilise support for the Iraqi people, and for the people of the whole Middle East – especially those of Palestine. We must insist on international multilateralism. The UN (not the US) must oversee democratisation and social reconstruction in Iraq. We call on COSATU and its affiliates to establish direct links with the Iraqi working class and their organisations. We call on all progressive South Africans to continue to be active on Iraq.

Zimbabwe and Swaziland

This May Day, the SACP conveys its especial sense of solidarity with the workers and poor of our two neighbouring countries – Zimbabwe and Swaziland.

In both countries, workers and their organisations have come out courageously in action to protest against the grave crisis of worsening socio-economic conditions, and against the contempt for human rights and the basic rule of law by the governing elites in both those countries.

As South Africans we know that it is not us who can solve the crisis. It is the people of Zimbabwe and Swaziland who must do that. But we also want the workers and poor of those countries to know that they are not alone. Their struggles and their suffering is not unnoticed.

As South Africans we resolve to intensify our efforts to assist in overcoming the constitutional crisis in Swaziland, and the political impasse in Zimbabwe.