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Out with the class collaborationist leaders! Break with the ANC-SACP government of millionaires/billionaires!
FORWARD TO THE GENERAL STRIKE!
For the entire negotiations process and strike in the public sector, the ANC-SACP leaders in our unions have failed the working class! They must be removed now! First they postponed our struggle until after the world cup; then they lowered our wage demand to a miserable 8.6%; the Cosatu leaders were the ones to sell out even this demand by offering the government of millionaires/ billionaires that they should now only give us 7.5%; now they are roaming around the country trying to demoralise the strike and saying that we don’t understand the government ‘offer’. The Cosatu leaders have no problem with over R100 bn being handed over within a short space to the imperialists who built the 2010 stadiums over our exploitation; the trade union leaders have no problem with the imperialists getting R1000 bn for the eskom scam ‘build’ programme (for power stations that we do not need); they have no problem with the high interest loans from the imperialist banks that get paid first by government, a total of R320 bn in 4 years; they have no problem that the government cannot even find the less than R2bn for our increase; among these leaders paid themselves a 100% increase last year while we were buckling under high food, transport, education and electricity prices. These leaders have ignored our mandate for a general strike against the high electricity increases. These leaders insult us by saying we do not understand the government’s ‘offer’. We understand very well the hunger and starvation while our leaders live in mansions in Sandton. What the leaders are saying is that they will ignore the workers’ mandate for an immediate solidarity general strike. In other words, we cannot depend on this leadership to fight for our demands- they are collaborators with the capitalists; they must be removed now in order for the general strike against the imperialist, starvation policy of the government to go ahead! We must remove the enemy within our ranks! Enough!
We are not weak, we are strong!
The motor sector is out on strike for a 20%, many the mineworkers are coming on strike for 11%; all industrial sectors in Cosatu voted to come out in solidarity with us. We are not weak, we are strong. We must not allow the leaders to divide and demoralise us. After being so arrogant for a number of days, why did Mantashe come begging to the Cosatu CEC for a solution to the strike? He was sent because his imperialist masters were worried that the entire working class was going to unite against their starvation policy. The President, back from his business trip for seeking profits for Anglo American in China, was instructed by the capitalists to try to end the strike before the unity of the entire working class happens in a general strike. No, we are not weak but strong!
The path to the general strike
- First, we must unify our ranks and kick out the class collaborationist leaders; we need a revolutionary leadership, based on the strike committees; the immediate task is to convene a national meeting of the strike committees, which must include delegates from the entire industrial working class, to set a date for the solidarity general strike
- We must broaden the strike committees in each area to include employed workers from every street, delegates from the unemployed, delegates from the soldiers, delegates from the immigrant workers; let the street and block committees of the 1980’s rise again; but this is not enough, broader strike committees must be set up in every workplace to prepare for the solidarity general strike; we need to call mass meetings of parent teachers students to spread the strike committees!
- We need to immediately consider the question of workers self-defence committees under the direct control of the strike committees (we see how the police have acted in our strike and how they act against our brothers and sisters in Mozambique)
- There needs to be strike committees in every industrial area, mine, shop, farm, every working class area that sends delegates to regional and national worker summit, to centralise the demands of the working class and to drive the general strike;
Proposed demands for the general strike:
- R6000 minimum monthly wage; 8.6% increase, R1000 housing allowance; equalization of medical aid benefits;
- limit the salaries of managers. MP’s and government ministers to that of an average skilled worker;
- the right of instant recall of any representative, be they councilor, MP, Minister
- equal pay for equal work (including immigrant workers)
- share all the work among all who can work, without loss of pay;
- wages should increase when prices increase;
- Expropriate all imperialist assets, the mines and banks, without compensation, place them under workers control;
- Expropriate the entire food sector, from the farms, to the food manufacturers to the giant retailers, without compensation, and place them under workers control;
- expropriate the private health care sector, without compensation, place under workers control; this will open the doors to free quality health care for all;
- renationalize, without compensation, all sectors that have been privatized, including the coal, iron ore and steel sectors;
- Down with the brutal, antiworker regimes of Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho; we call on all workers in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, in Swaziland and Lesotho to join in the general strike; for the setting up of strike committees in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Lesotho, which are nothing but slave camps for imperialism; the very same imperialism that keeps the working class in South Africa in chains; Down with the anti-worker regimes across Africa.
A general strike, not a stayaway
Why the SACP promotes stayaways is to atomise and isolate the strikers so that it is easier for the leadership to sellout the struggle; a stayaway opens workers to victimization as they are now isolated individuals instead of being a united mass; a stayaway demobilizes that masses instead of posing a united stance against the capitalists; a stayaway opens the door for scab labour to be used by the bosses; a strike is a contest for power- a strike/occupation would confront the bosses with a united mass at each workplace- the question of who the real power is, is placed on the agenda- ie the power of the workers who produce the wealth, or the parasitic capitalists who rule through the brute force of state power; if workers stay at home it gives the bosses strength; they have the capacity to wait out the strike. A stayaway is a self-imposed lockout, a pacifist tactic, always tipping the struggle ultimately in the favour of the capitalists and therefore the imperialists. A general strike/occupation immediately poses the question of strike and factory committees; from here grows the basis for workers power. That is why the SACP so violently opposes real general strikes and at best will only support stayaways to tire out the masses and then reach a settlement that keeps the working class in various levels of slavery.
The capitalists-imperialists are the ones who are starving us; that is why we need to confront them and their agents in government; that is why we need a general strike, not a stayaway. No more negotiations behind our backs! In short, the ANC-SACP has become the instrument of holding back the struggle for even the most basic democratic demands of the masses. At the same time, the only reliable force to drive these basic demands is the working class! That is why the centre of the indefinite general strike has to be the achievement of the basic democratic demands which can only be accomplished by the working class in power- no other class will stand up for this. Break with the ANC-SACP government of millionaires/billionaires! Out the pro-capitalist leaders! Forward to the general strike! Forward to workers power! Down with a Labour party that the fake left and Cosatu bureaucrats are preparing for the imperialists to help chain the working class once more! Forward to a revolutionary working class party as part of refounding a revolutionary International! Forward to a committee to refound the Fourth International!
Forward to the Federation of Socialist Workers states of Southern Africa!
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