ANTI-PRIVATISATION FORUM - The Politics of the COSATU Strike

[John Cox <hazel_motes52@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

ANTI-PRIVATISATION FORUM

PUBLIC STATEMENT

(Tuesday 1st October - 18h00)

THE POLITICS OF THE CONGRESS OF SOUTH AFRICAN TRADE UNIONS (COSATU)

ANTI-PRIVATISATION STRIKE

Today, hundreds of thousands of workers went on strike across South
Africa against the privatisation policies of the ANC government. For
these workers and the working class community organisations such as
the APF that came out in full support of the strike, it has become
crystal clear that privatisation strengthens and consolidates the
control and ownership of society by the capitalist class at the direct
expense of the entire working class. The results, which South African
workers and communities have been experiencing on a firsthand basis,
are that profits decide the needs and rights of the people and
democracy becomes something to be bought and sold.

The target of the strike, the ANC government, has shown, time and
again, that it is completely committed to privatisation in all its
various forms. It is the ANC government, in class co-operation with
the capitalist bosses and multinational corporations, which has
privatised basic services such as water, housing and electricity. It
is the ANC government that continues to pursue the privatisation of
key public sector utilities such as ESKOM, TRANSNET and TELKOM.

The ANC government's drive to privatise has resulted in hundreds of
thousands of workers losing their jobs and millions more having to
struggle just to earn a living wage and enjoy decent working
conditions. This is the direct result of the GEAR
programme. Meanwhile, the capitalist bosses and multinational
corporations have gotten rich and fat, taking the wealth that workers
produce all for themselves. Now they want to extend this oppression to
the entire continent of Africa through NEPAD. It is the same
privatisation programme of the ANC government that forces working
class communities to suffer water and electricity cut-offs and housing
evictions.

For the Anti-Privatisation Forum, the fight against privatisation in
both the workplace and in the community is a fight of one class
against another, the working class against the capitalist class. Such
a fight can never be won if the working class is divided.

In South Africa, the ANC government and its capitalist friends are
doing all they can to ensure that we are divided. The ANC government
has deliberately set out to caricature the legitimate struggles of
workers and communities against privatisation as nothing more than
misplaced political antics that will hurt the economy and "sacrifice
workers wages and production of the wealth needed to fight
poverty". The ANC has attempted to sow division by accusing a
so-called "ultra-leftist" clique of misleading workers and communities
against the 'people's' government. And, the ANC has tried to
depoliticise working class struggles by claiming the virtual
impossibility of an alternative left political organisation contesting
for fundamental political and socio-economic change in South Africa.

Despite the blatant fabrication and hypocrisy that is the hallmark of
these tactics of division, they will succeed as long as key sections
of the working class continue to give political support to the
capitalist ANC government, in the vain hope that this will eventually
lead to the end of privatisation and to the defeat of capitalism.

The failure of NACTU and FEDUSA to come out in full support of the
strike only serves to play into the hands of the ANC government and
its capitalist allies.  Likewise, the continued insistence by sections
of the COSATU leadership, that workers can politically support the ANC
and win the struggle against privatisation and capitalism is at best
naïve, at worst, political and personal opportunism. The COSATU
leadership must ask itself a simple, yet fundamental, question - who
are the real allies of the workers in South Africa? Are they to be
found amongst the ranks of a government that revels in its attacks on
workers whilst mouthing meaningless rhetoric about a "national
democratic revolution", "patriotism" and "nation building"? What about
the new black capitalists who grow filthy rich on the backs of the
workers whilst hiding behind the smokescreen of "black economic
empowerment"?

Or, are the real allies to be found amongst the very working class
communities where workers themselves live and who suffer from, and
struggle against, the capitalist policies implemented by the ANC
government? When the COSATU leadership allows corporate CEOs to speak
on their strike platform but refuse the same for leaders of working
class community organisations, then the question raised begs for an
urgent and decisive answer.

COSATU's strike is a positive sign that organised workers are sick and
tired of the cheap rhetoric, endless 'consultations' and political
hypocrisy that have been the staple diet of an ANC determined to
organisationally contain and politically defeat the forces of the
working class in South Africa. It should be quite clear from the
events and pronouncements of the last few days that this determination
is only going to intensify. What is now needed is for the entire
working class to draw a clear class line, politically, economically
and organisationally. There are real, working alternatives to this
capitalist system and the political and economic forces that drive
it. The APF calls upon all COSATU workers to stand on the left side of
the class line so that we can, as a united working class, fight and
win. This is the only way we are going to bury the privatisation
monster and move forward in our struggles for a new society in which
people come before profits and in which the basic needs and rights of
the majority are not simply privileges enjoyed by a rich minority.  We
have suffered long enough. We have been divided for too long. Let us
join together and move forward to another South Africa, another
world. It is more than a possibility - it is a necessity!

For further information contact:

Dale McKinley on 072 429-4086 or Trevor Ngwane on 083 293 7691

Visit the APF website at http://www.apf.org.za


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