Workers and Socialist Party Launched in South Africa

[Jolly Red Giant]

Almost 600 delegates attended the launch meeting of Workers and Socialist Party in Pretoria on Thursday. The launch received significant coverage in the South African media. These delegates included the representatives of the following workers organisations (and its not a complete list) -
independent workers’ committees from
KDC West,
AngloGold Ashanti,
Bokoni Platinum,
Harmony Gold,
Royal Bafokeng Platinum Rasimone
Murray & Roberts Kroondal
Klerksdorp Uranium,
Kumba Iron Ore in Northern Cape,
Gold Fields KDC,
Mpumalanga coal mines
The Tshwane post office workers who were sacked this week for taking strike action

The meeting was also attended by delegates from trade union branches and community, youth and student organisations. Individual trade union branches have affiliated to WASP.

The National Transport Movement (NATAWU) has affiliated to WASP. The NTM is a rapidly growing trade union among transport workers following a split in 'baas boy' SATAWU. The NTM describes itself as a 'revolutionary trade union' and has thousands of members.

Among those invited to attend the launch was Irish Socialist Party (CWI) member of parliament Joe Higgins

News report footage of the launch meeting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JQ1lpyz7K8

http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/6223

http://www.socialistsouthafrica.co.za/

http://workerssocialistparty.co.za/

[Q]

Interesting development. How many members are we talking about (given that "600 delegates" usually means that they represent a bigger group of people)?

It is good that you can actually join (http://workerssocialistparty.co.za/?page_id=72) the party as an individual, unlike the ULA or TUSC for example that only know (knew, heh) membership of groups as far as I'm aware. This is certainly a step forwards.

It is somewhat unclear to me what WASP will be like. Will it be a communist party or a Labour-like formation? The manifesto (http://workerssocialistparty.co.za/?page_id=2) seems to indicate the latter as no mention is made of a socialist goal or political struggle, but instead remains within the sphere of trade-unionist political representation (i.e. Labour) and even then on the economical side of things. I can understand though that the South-African CWI forces have had to make concessions to get this started and that things are still fluid. I can't judge that from my position.

But this is a positive development to be sure and an opening for communists to work in and fight for a communist programme.

[Aurora]

Very promising stuff, i have a couple questions though.

Why form a new party, why not just build the DSM? The programs of both groups have most important points in common.

What will be the relation of the DSM to the WASP, will it be an organised faction or will it dissolve itself within?

Due to the nature of unions as an organ of negotiation between workers and capitalists, isn't there a danger in having unions, even the most red, affiliated to what is hoped to become an organisation that fights for the overthrow of capitalism?

[bricolage]

WASP is a pretty unfortunate acronym...
what does KDC stand for?

[Tim Cornelis]

Hot-diggity.


Kick out the fat-cats. Nationalise the mines, the farms, the banks and big business. Nationalised industry to be under the democratic control of workers and working class communities. Democratic planning of production for social need, not profit.

Refreshingly radical.

[ed miliband]

Hot-diggity.



Refreshingly radical.

that's... sarcasm, right?

[Tim Cornelis]

that's... sarcasm, right?

No.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

For the past 20 years or so global capitalism could count on the "Tripartite Alliance", COSATU, the ANC, and the SACP, to control the SA working class and manage their exploitation. This is currently unravelling though. Profit margins for the mining corporations are very tight necessitating even more brutal exploitation.

Socialist ideas are still very popular in South Africa. WASP could potentially be an explosive development.

In the US the acronym "WASP" stands for "White Anglo Saxon Protestant", a non accurate popularization of the US ruling class. In South Africa it does not have this meaning. The WASP project was launched to be broader than the tiny DSM and to attract other radical left groups and disenchanted elements splitting from the ANC and SACP.

The Tripartite Alliance, using leftist and even radical phraseology, is truly the "left wing of capital". Striking miners have actually been called "counter revolutionaries" showing both the ideological confusion and desperation of the ruling class. Meanwhile Jacob Zuma has spent millions on a new house while Cyril Ramaphosa, once a fiery trade unionist, is a billionaire.

[ed miliband]

No.

what is "radical" about shitty populist rhetoric like 'fat-cats' and calls for nationalisation (whether under the control of the workers and "working class communities" or not)? this is clement attlee shit. left needs to get out of the 30s and 40s.

[Jolly Red Giant]

To answer a few of the questions

Interesting development. How many members are we talking about (given that "600 delegates" usually means that they represent a bigger group of people)?


As of last Thursday - as well as the affiliated organisations - WASP has over 1,000 individually registered members.


It is good that you can actually join (http://workerssocialistparty.co.za/?page_id=72) the party as an individual, unlike the ULA or TUSC for example that only know (knew, heh) membership of groups as far as I'm aware.
This is incorrect - both the ULA and TUSC have individual membership - don't know about TUSC but the ULA probably has about 20 individual members active in it these days - mostly hanging around the fringes of the two members of parliament Joan Collins and Clare Daly.



Why form a new party, why not just build the DSM? The programs of both groups have most important points in common.
The current programme of WASP is a minimal programme that will be debated and extended in the run up to and during the founding conference.


What will be the relation of the DSM to the WASP, will it be an organised faction or will it dissolve itself within?
The DSM is affiliated to WASP and will not be dissolving itself into WASP


Due to the nature of unions as an organ of negotiation between workers and capitalists, isn't there a danger in having unions, even the most red, affiliated to what is hoped to become an organisation that fights for the overthrow of capitalism?
The affiliation of individual union branches and national unions is a vital step in building any mass left party - the involvement of the unions extends the reach of the party and acts as a radicalising force in the unions. Already activists within the AMCU are campaigning for the AMCU to affiliate to WASP and if this were to happen it would significantly raise the profile of WASP while at the same time strengthening the most radical elements within the AMCU



what does KDC stand for?
Kloof-Driefontein Complex - it is 100% owned by GoldFields Ltd. KDC owns a large goldmine complex near Westonaria and Carletonville in the Gauteng Province of South Africa. Nearly 30,000 miners work at the complex. There are two mines - KDC West and KDC East (the East is normally known as Goldfields KDC)

Following on from what Lenina said - Not surprisingly - the SACP has condemned WASP as 'workerist' and playing into the hands of 'opportunists' who are attempting to undermine the national democratic revolution of the ANC (a harp back to its attacks on the Marxist Workers Tendency - CWI - in the late 1980s). The SACP has also begun to attack growing opposition within COSATU to the triumvirate of the ANC/SACP/COSATU. Last week SACP General Secretary Blade Nzimande, condemned oppositionist elements within COSATU for what he called "a rejectionist stance against some of government's policies... (that) ...has weakened, rather than strengthened, Cosatu's ability," He said the members of the alliance "could not act opportunistically when it suited them." He then went on to condemn demands for the nationalisation of the country's mining industry.

[Tim Cornelis]

what is "radical" about shitty populist rhetoric like 'fat-cats' and calls for nationalisation (whether under the control of the workers and "working class communities" or not)? this is clement attlee shit. left needs to get out of the 30s and 40s.

It calls for democratic planning for needs and an end to private property as well as workers' control. Which is, in essence, a transitional phase between capitalism and socialism. Given that I was expecting anti-neoliberal social-democracy, yes that strikes me as radical. It's more radical than the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, far more radical than SYRIZA, more than the Portuguese Communist Party, more than Chavismo, or the French Communist Party.

Is it communism proper? No, but that such an ideology emerges from actual workers' struggles instead of boring irrelevant sects makes it hard to maintain that it can't be qualified as "radical." "Radical" isn't monopolised by communism you know.

[ed miliband]

It calls for democratic planning for needs and an end to private property as well as workers' control. Which is, in essence, a transitional phase between capitalism and socialism. Given that I was expecting anti-neoliberal social-democracy, yes that strikes me as radical. It's more radical than the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, far more radical than SYRIZA, more than the Portuguese Communist Party, more than Chavismo, or the French Communist Party.

Is it communism proper? No, but that such an ideology emerges from actual workers' struggles instead of boring irrelevant sects makes it hard to maintain that it can't be qualified as "radical." "Radical" isn't monopolised by communism you know.

nah, on second thoughts i can't be bothered arguing over what is radical and what isn't, especially as i don't use that word at all anyway. i mean, yeah... compared to whatever remains of the official communist parties i'm sure it's "radical", but that isn't really saying very much at all, is it? there's nothing new here.

[Geiseric]

what is "radical" about shitty populist rhetoric like 'fat-cats' and calls for nationalisation (whether under the control of the workers and "working class communities" or not)? this is clement attlee shit. left needs to get out of the 30s and 40s.

Nationalising industry isn't a joke dude, it's a huge fucking deal. Unions grow and become more powerful from industries being nationalized, especially like how the workers party is planning how to do it. Unless you're a sectarian you would support that.

[Jolly Red Giant]

An update on the Inquiry into the Marikana massacre -

The National Police commissioner in South Africa, General Riah Phiyega has been caught out giving contradictory evidence at the Marikana Inquiry.

Phiyega spent three hours in the witness box claiming that the police fired on the mine workers in 'self-defence' and that there was no evidence that any mine worker had been murdered by police. She was then confronted by evidence that one member of the police force, Hendrich Wouter Myburgh, had provided an affadavit to the police that he had witnessed a national intervention unit constable shoot a wounded mine worker in cold blood. When Myburgh asked the NIU officer what he was doing, the NIU officer responded "They deserve to die".

After been criticised by Justice Farlam for trying to avoid the issue Phiyega was forced to admit that she knew about this affadavit but that she had decided not to pursue the matter was not 'that serious' (something also reiterated by Myburgh), that Myburgh could not identify the NIU constable, that it would be impossible to find out who fired the shot and that she was not responsible for ensuring an investigation was carried out. At this point advocate Mbuyiseli Madlanga produced further evidence, introducing SAPS records of which policemen discharged what type of weapon. The records indicate that there were only four NIU members who fired 9mm pistols at Scene 2, Small Koppie.

Of those four NIU policemen who discharged their 9mm pistols there, only two were constables, Mkhululi Halam and Sebenzile Thafeni. Halam is said to have fired three 9mm rounds, and Thafeni to have fired two. Neither of these NIU officers were ever questioned about Myburgh's allegations.

Phiyega spent the rest of her day in the witness box attempting to frustrate the Inquiry's attempts to find out the role of police minister Nathi Mthethwa. Phiyega constantly changed her testimony and made an utter eejit out of herself doing significant damage to the government in the process. She even went so far as to accuse Mbuyiseli Madlanga and the Inquiry of discriminating against her on gender grounds. There is now clear evidence that the ANC government instigated a cover-up of the massacre and those who were responsible for the killings.

Phiyega is expected to be sacked from her position in the near future.

The South African Human Rights Council has condemned the government and the police for engaging in a cover-up over the Marikana massacre after reviewing the evidence of police commissioner Riah Phiyega. The SAHRC stated "At best, the national commissioner was dishonest in saying that she had received no information to cause her to question the truth of her press statement that the police had acted only in self-defence,...At worst, the fact that the police have never mentioned this evidence is indicative of a deliberate cover-up."

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Nationalising industry isn't a joke dude, it's a huge fucking deal. Unions grow and become more powerful from industries being nationalized, especially like how the workers party is planning how to do it. Unless you're a sectarian you would support that.

But unions exist to represent workers under capitalism. No capitalism = no unions. Unions have always defended capitalism because their raison d'etre is to operate within the system. Unions are an organisation form unique to capitalism.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

But unions exist to represent workers under capitalism. No capitalism = no unions. Unions have always defended capitalism because their raison d'etre is to operate within the system. Unions are an organisation form unique to capitalism.

Just as proletarians are a class unique to capitalism.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Just as proletarians are a class unique to capitalism.

Yep. We want to abolish classes, right? And so we should be looking to abolish unions with capitalism, not having some sort of 'union-managed capital' masquerading as something more, i.e. Socialism.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Yep. We want to abolish classes, right? And so we should be looking to abolish unions with capitalism, not having some sort of 'union-managed capital' masquerading as something more, i.e. Socialism.

Unions have had their place in anti capitalist ideology from day one; from Anarcho-Syndicalism to De-Leonism almost every worker's struggle until the modern era has had a union involved it it and almost every scheme envisioned some union involvement in planning and management. Although I don't believe in participation in reformist unions even I know that rejection of unions because they exist under capitalism is a pretty bad reason to reject unions, because by that logic we should avoid working with the proletariat.

BTW I don't support syndicalism but that was still a pretty bad critique of syndicalism and I felt the need to point it out.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Unions have had their place in anti capitalist ideology from day one; from Anarcho-Syndicalism to De-Leonism almost every worker's struggle until the modern era has had a union involved it it and almost every scheme envisioned some union involvement in planning and management. Although I don't believe in participation in reformist unions even I know that rejection of unions because they exist under capitalism is a pretty bad reason to reject unions, because by that logic we should avoid working with the proletariat.

BTW I don't support syndicalism but that was still a pretty bad critique of syndicalism and I felt the need to point it out.

I wasn't saying don't engage in unions. They obviously have their place in defending workers' rights, and in fighting such economic struggles, but we should not engage with them in the sense of viewing them as revolutionary vehicles, as they are not.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

I wasn't saying don't engage in unions. They obviously have their place in defending workers' rights, and in fighting such economic struggles, but we should not engage with them in the sense of viewing them as revolutionary vehicles, as they are not.

Fair enough, perhaps there was a miscommunication. Still I do think there is a level of validity to the IWW vanguard union approach, however the problem of first world Labor Aristocracy tends to foil revolutionary union efforts. Though in the context of South Africa where there is a history of left-wing politics and class struggle in unions I think there could be some merit there.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Graspan Colliery
250 mineworkers have been taking part in a week-long unprotected strike at Shanduka Coal's Graspan colliery in Mpumalanga. The miners have been demanding performance bonuses similar to those at the six Exxaro collieries who won concessions after a two week strike.

The police and security thugs belonging to the company have attacked striking miners in an effort to break the strike with the police firing rubber bullets and live ammunition, injuring seven of the striking workers last Tuesday. The police denied using live rounds but one of the striking workers underwent surgery in a local hospital for a gunshot wound to the abdomen and another miner was treated for a gunshot wound to the left side of the chest. The police attacked the striking miners when they used road graders to block the entrance to the strike-bound mine. Not surprisingly the 'baas boy' NUM have refused to back the strike, claiming that it was illegal and not sanctioned by the NUM. The NUM are sending a 'task force' to investigate why the strike started.

Amplats
Meanwhile Amplats have announced that they intend to continue their 'retrenchment' programme that will result in cutting 14,000 jobs. The "Workers Committee" at Amplats, say they will bring production to a halt again if the company forges ahead with its plan. "If Anglo goes to retrench 14 000 workers, we are going back to a strike," said Siphamandla Malchanya, a leader of the Amplats' Workers Committee.

Harmony Gold
Management at Harmony's Kusasalethu mine have announced that they are 'restoring order' to the mine complex that has seen repeated strikes since September. They plan on shifting the allegiance of workers 'back to the company from their union'. Harmony CEO Graham Briggs said "Workers firstly have a contract with an employer and then he has the option of a union affiliation,". Workers are to be forced to sign a 'code of conduct' to get their jobs back. Less than a third of the workforce of more than 6,000 workers (mostly the remaining NUM members) have agreed to the new contract. Harmony shut down the mining complex in December and are planning on only re-employing workers. Briggs is working with other mine owners to break the workers strike committees who have organised repeated strike action against low pay in the region. Briggs stated "Employers need to take a stance. The stance we took was a difficult and expensive one...". Harmony have stated that they want to continue "paying company dividends (without) large capital expenditure" - and obviously paying as little as possible to those who dig the gold out of the ground.

Marikana Inquiry
Meanwhile, police are 'investigating' the murder of a witness due to appear at the Marikana inquiry. A traditional healer was shot execution style in his home in the Eastern Cape. Police have stated that their investigation will not be given any special priority because of the Marikana Inquiry.

At the Inquiry itself, Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega is in further trouble. While discussing one of the many shooting instances in which police opened fire, Phiyega claimed that the police had been fired on by the striking workers. Advocate Mbuyiseli Madlanga then outlined that the evidence points to the fact that the police came under 'friendly fire' and responded by shooting striking workers in the back. Phiyega refused to deny that she could have been wrong about who was firing live rounds in this instance. Continuously Phiyega dodged the questions being asked by Madlinga and again drawing the wrath of Justice Farlam for being honest and forthright with her answers.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Thousands of farm labourers are threatening to resume strike action in the Western Cape. Previous widespread strike action forced a 56% pay increase with promises that the ANC government would review the minimum wage that was increased to R105 (approx €9) per day. Labourers are demanding an increase to R150 per day. The farm labourers have set a deadline of two weeks for their demands to be met.

Meanwhile the South Africa Post Office have begun using scabs to clear the backlog of mail as a result of the strike by almost 600 workers at Tshwane in Pretoria. The striking workers were sacked when their union, the CWU, refused to sanction strike action resulting in the workers establishing an independent strike committee. COSATU have criticised the workers for establishing an independent committee stating that they should not 'cause divisions' in the CWU 'if they wanted to be reinstated'.

[Jolly Red Giant]

A demonstration organised by the Marikana Solidarity Campaign outside the Farlam Commission in Rustenberg to protest at the lies being told by police commissioner Riah Phiyega was broken up by police who confiscated placards and threatened protestors with arrest. The placards demanded Phiyega's resignation and proclaimed 'Don't let the police get away with murder'. Scuffles broke out with police as they grabbed placards from the hands of protestors.

Later the police were forced to acknowledge that the protestors had a right to demonstrate ouside the Inquiry and police on duty were instructed not to interfere with any protests.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Nationalized industry IS NOT socialism. Nationalization has never resulted in the abolition of the law of value or the end of the market or wage labor. As long as commodity exchange is governed by the law of value, you have a capitalist market, so Stalinists don't came at me with shit about the PRC or USSR being tru anti-reviseonist socilism in 1 country.
We should be for proletarian dictatorship through soviets.

[Q]

Nationalized industry IS NOT socialism. Nationalization has never resulted in the abolition of the law of value or the end of the market or wage labor. As long as commodity exchange is governed by the law of value, you have a capitalist market, so Stalinists don't came at me with shit about the PRC or USSR being tru anti-reviseonist socilism in 1 country.
We should be for proletarian dictatorship through soviets.

I don't think we should fetishise the soviet form (which has its own limitations), but you are quite right that nationalisations et al only make sense in the context of proletarian political hegemony. Any immediate programme should fight for that and aim to win the battle for democracy.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Further updates of the launch of the Workers and Socialist Party

Background -
The mining industry is the mainstay of the SA economy and the mineworkers the backbone of the working class, but it is not just here that the class struggle rages intensely. The farmworkers of the Western Cape have risen up in several waves from late 2012 to demand higher wages. They followed the model established by the mineworkers and moved to organise independent strike committees and they too forced concessions from the government and the big business farmers. In community after community, service delivery protests are held daily, in demand of roads, sanitation, electricity and water. In Sasolburg, the community exploded in a mass movement against attempts to cut funding even further (Several paople were killed by the police during protests in January). In the public sector, under the pressure of a growing budget deficit, mighty battles over pay and outsourcing loom. In the aftermath of Marikana, and mired in corruption, the ANC has lost whole swathes of its ‘traditional base’ amongst the working class and poor masses. Cosatu is riven with division and the process of disintegration is progressing. Workers are not allowing the slavish support for the Tripartite Alliance by the Cosatu leadership to hold back their struggles. New independent unions are being created and discontent amongst Cosatu rank-and-file and shop stewards is simmering.

Reports from the launch meeting -
One of the speakers at the launch, a workers’ committee member from the Carletonville gold mines south of Johannesburg said: “This is the time to build and prepare to fight… During the strike we saw the NUM, Cosatu, the ANC and SACP – none of them came to defend us. Instead they attacked us. It was the DSM alone that came to us when we were on the mountain, and stayed there with us to fight.”

The mineworkers embrace WASP as “our” party. It was in these terms that delegates from different mines pledged their support at the launch. Speakers included workers’ delegates from Klerksdorp Uranium, Kumba Iron Ore, Bokoni Platinum, Gold Fields KDC, Harmony Gold, the Mpumalanga coal mines and Anglo Gold Ashanti. As the launch was broadcast on TV, a mineworkers leader from a mine that was unable to attend the launch phoned to report that dozens of workers had turned up at his office demanding to know: “how do we join OUR party?!”

The president and executive members of the new National Transport & Allied Workers Union (NATAWU) attended and spoke from the top table. NATAWU is a left-split from the Cosatu-affiliated SATAWU transport union and is already out-stripping them in membership because of their willingness to decisively lead struggle in a series of strikes in the transport sector over recent weeks.

And it is not just in South Africa that WASP is making waves. A teacher from Namibia – a member of the teachers’ worker committee – travelled days to attend the launch, despite the death of his son just a few days earlier. Since the launch WASP has been contacted by, amongst others, a group of farmworkers and a group of health workers asking to join and help build WASP.

The working class response is off to a good start with the launch. A worker from the Sishen Kumba Iron Ore mine in the Northern Cape summed up the mood in his speech – “We are so fortunate to be here today to launch our organisation which is we must build into a force to fight for us. Now we must go back to all shafts and build.”

[Jolly Red Giant]

The wave of strikes in the South African Mining sector has spread internationally.

Gold Fields, who three weeks ago, in response to ongoing unrest in its mines, spun off its South African holdings into a seperately listed company, has seen a wildcat strike break out involving 3,000 miners at its complex at Tarkwa and Damang in Ghana. The Ghanaian mines account for 900,000 ozs of gold or 43% of Gold Fields yearly gold production.

700 Chinese mine workers working at a uranium mine in Niger initially staged a three day strike two weeks ago but have now gone on idefinite strike demanding higher wages and beeter living and working conditions. The mine is the largest supplier of uranium to the French nuclear industry.

Meanwhile in South Africa
The wave of strikes in the South African mining sector has caused a $1.2 billion shortfall in tax revenue, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said Wednesday. The mining sector reported losses of six billion rand in provisional tax revenue, he said. "The direct and indirect impact on tax revenue is estimated to be above 11.3 billion rand," said Gordhan.

The 'baas boy' NUM have criticised mine owers in South Africa - not for sacking workers or driving them to strike action - but declaring that the mine owners are causing all the strikes by declaring the strikes illegal and then entering negotiations with the independent strike committees.

“NUM still says that illegal is illegal, but the companies are applying double standards,” Seshoka said. “They claim something is illegal and yet go and talk with a new union in the dark on a settlement". Seshoka went on “We and the industry need to have frank discussions; it is difficult to reverse the trend that the industry helped to create themselves.”

'Baas boy' Uasa's Franz Stehring said he agreed with Seshoka’s sentiment, and was particularly critical of the intervention of a minister to bring a similar unprotected strike at the construction site of the Medupi power plant to an end a week ago. “The minister of public works (Malusi Gigaba) gave those workers the perfect reason not to belong to a trade union,” he said. Stehring said Harmony Gold’s Graham Briggs set the correct example when he threatened and followed through on the closure of the group’s Kusasalethu mine following a series of sit-ins and other violent incidents towards the end of 2012.

Meanwhile security thugs from AmPlats mine Siphumelele mine in the Rustenburg opened fire on members of the workers committee staging a protest at the NUM offices at the mine. Nine workers were hospitalised as a result of being hit by rubber bullets. The security force were attempting to evacuate NUM stewards from their offices. The protest occurred after Cosatu president S'dumo Dlamini spoke at a small NUM march in Rustenburg referring to the independent workers committees as a “Mickey Mouse union”. The NUM had agreed to withdraw their stewards from the Siphumelele mine while an auditing process to find union membership numbers was being conducted. The NUM stewards secretly returned to the mine in an attempt to fiddle the union numbers with the mine management.

Reponding to claims that the protesting workers were armed independent workers committee delegate Tebogo Mauwane said “The workers just stood outside the NUM offices. They never went in. The mine police [private security guards] came and they just shot at the crowd outside the offices. Those nine people were injured. Someone was very badly injured in the head by a rubber bullet. Everybody thought he was dead. The [security] took an iron rod and placed it in the man’s hands, just like they did in Marikana, to make it appear as if he was armed. None of the men were armed as they had just come from shift. Do you know how they search you in the mines? Nobody could have had weapons.”

Workers staged a 24-hour strike in support of their fellow workers following the attack by the security thugs.

[l'Enfermé]

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/956/attempt-to-go-round-already-existing-mass-organisations

South African left: Attempt to go round already existing mass organisations

Wasp might be able to sting the SACP/Cosatu bureaucracy. But, asks Peter Manson, can it become a mass party capable of leading a socialist revolution?

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/assets/images/wwimages/ww956/wasp.jpg
Workers and Socialist Party

On March 21 the Workers and Socialist Party (Wasp) was launched in Tshwane, South Africa at a meeting attended by 500-600 workers. It was set up on the initiative of the Democratic Socialist Movement, which is the South African affiliate of Peter Taaffe’s Committee for a Workers’ International.

Wasp is intended to be the “broad mass party” which the Socialist Party in England and Wales believes is a necessity everywhere. Everywhere traditional working class parties, whether Labourite or social democratic, have now gone over completely to the bourgeoisie and, according to the SPEW/CWI theory, are completely useless even as sites for struggle. The task now is to found fighting alternatives, which, at this stage, can only be ‘broad’ - ie, parties where all class-conscious workers can come together. The CWI will provide such parties with the “Marxist, revolutionary spine”1 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/956/attempt-to-go-round-already-existing-mass-organisations#1) and eventually - how we are not told - a Marxist party will emerge.


According to the CWI website, The launch of Wasp “surpassed all expectations”. It reports: “Over 500 Tshwane workers, mineworkers’ delegates, trade union and community activists packed Lucas Van Den Bergh Community Hall in Pretoria ... The hall could not accommodate the turnout and attendees overspilled onto the neighbouring field.”


Continuing in optimistic vein, the CWI notes: “It is without a doubt that Wasp is striking a chord with working class people. Today’s launch will have worried many in the establishment - the ANC and their partners in government, the Cosatu leadership and big business. A new power is rising. The working class are getting organised and they are preparing a mighty challenge to the status quo. The ideas of socialism are being re-embraced.”2 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/956/attempt-to-go-round-already-existing-mass-organisations#2)


The CWI report names three DSM speakers at the launch, plus Joe Higgins, the Irish Socialist Party TD. Also on the platform were Elias Juba, chair of the national mineworkers committee, set up with the encouragement of the DSM, and Ephraim Mphahlela, president of the breakaway National Transport Movement union. The CWI/DSM enthusiasm for new working class organisations is not restricted to alternative parties: it also calls on workers to break with the existing trade unions, mostly affiliated to the Congress of South African Trade Unions, dominated by the South African Communist Party and linked to the ruling African National Congress.


he CWI also states that “workers’ delegates” from “supporting organisations” spoke at the launch and names those from seven different mining companies. Many such workers have become increasingly disgusted with the leadership of the official unions, tied as they are to the ANC-SACP-Cosatu tripartite alliance, and have responded positively to the DSM’s activism.


During last year’s strike wave, which saw the establishment hit back through the police slaughter of 34 miners at Marikana, the DSM was inadvertently given a helping hand by the SACP, which dubbed the CWI comrades “counterrevolutionary”, falsely blaming them for rank-and-file violence directed against National Union of Mineworkers shop stewards. This only served to boost the DSM’s standing amongst mineworkers and there was a brief period when the group seemed to feature in the mass media virtually every day. DSM speakers were invited to address rallies organised by unofficial strikers and attended by hundreds - not bad for an organisation of a few dozen comrades.


So should the launch be seen as a success for at least the first stage of the mass party ‘theory’? Well, not exactly. Pretoria was chosen for a reason. It was the site of a bitter (and ultimately successful) strike by municipal workers, where DSM comrades have been active in support. Most of those attending the launch were striking local workers with time on their hands, not the “delegates” named by the CWI.


In fact, the first attempt at a launch had occurred in December in Limpopo, one of the sites of the mass miners’ strikes. The DSM and “representatives of strike committees” had arranged a rally at a huge stadium. But this was a flop. As a result of “the withdrawal of the permission by police hours after it was granted to hold the rally at a stadium in Limpopo, the draconian bail conditions of leaders of the Bokoni Platinum strike committee and the shunning of the event by the media”, there were “just 20 delegates present”, according to the DSM’s own statement.3 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/956/attempt-to-go-round-already-existing-mass-organisations#3) Following what were “more than likely to be deliberate acts of sabotage”, the intended launch “had to be pared down to a founding meeting”.
Personally I do not find this very convincing. Permission to hold the rally in the stadium was withdrawn, some workers could not get there because of “draconian bail conditions”, and the media just did not cooperate. But surely that does not explain the dismal attendance. Not unless the DSM had been counting on the Bokoni workers to swell the numbers, as the municipal workers at Pretoria did on March 21.


But the DSM tried to put a brave face on things. The Limpopo “founding” was, nevertheless, an event with “the potential to change the political landscape of South Africa” and, in any case, “We will formally launch Wasp on March 21 - Sharpeville Day, 2013.” Strangely the December 18 2012 statement on the Limpopo debacle issued by the DSM executive committee can no longer be found on the group’s own website, nor that of the CWI.
Sting

So what sort of party will Wasp be? Well, for a start, its immediate demands are far more radical than what you would expect from the “broad mass party” the CWI envisages for Britain. Or at least they are looking further down the road to SPEW-style national socialism. Wasp’s five-point manifesto reads:


1.Kick out the fat cats. Nationalise the mines, the farms, the banks and big business. Nationalised industry to be under the democratic control of workers and working class communities. Democratic planning of production for social need, not profit.
2. End unemployment. Create socially useful jobs for all those seeking work. Fight for a living wage of R12,500 [£900] per month.
3. Stop cut-offs and evictions - for massive investment in housing, electricity, water, sanitation, roads, public transport and social services.
4. For publicly funded, free education from nursery to university.
5. For publicly funded free healthcare accessible to all.4 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/956/attempt-to-go-round-already-existing-mass-organisations#4)

The would-be party sums up its “principles” in the following points:


We reject outright the corruption of pro-capitalist politicians and political parties.



All Wasp candidates for publicly elected positions - whether councillors, MPLs or MPs - are elected subject to the right of immediate recall.



For workers’ representatives on workers’ wages. All officials elected on the basis of the Wasp manifesto will only take the wage of an average skilled worker. The remainder will be donated back to Wasp.5 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/956/attempt-to-go-round-already-existing-mass-organisations#5)

Wasp will be campaigning for “rolling mass action across mining communities to build up towards a one-day general strike”. It will “extend solidarity in action with all workers and working class communities in struggle whenever the need arises”. It intends to convene a conference to “flesh out its manifesto”6 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/956/attempt-to-go-round-already-existing-mass-organisations#6) and elect a leadership “before the end of the year”7 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/956/attempt-to-go-round-already-existing-mass-organisations#7) and it has set itself an ambitious target of collecting “one million signatures in support of building Wasp by August 16 2013”.8 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/956/attempt-to-go-round-already-existing-mass-organisations#8) It intends to contest the 2014 general election.


The DSM has said that existing left groups are free to join Wasp, while retaining their own distinct platforms. For example, the tiny Workers International Vanguard Party reports: “We have been assured that we can participate under our own name and with our own programme.” It concludes: “There will be a congress within a few months; if it adopts an opportunist position on elections, we will go our separate ways, but for now we hope to march together with the Wasp comrades in the class battles that are breaking out daily.”9 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/956/attempt-to-go-round-already-existing-mass-organisations#9)
In an interview with the press after the launch, DSM general secretary Weizmann Hamilton said: “The working class is on its own. It has no alternative but to reclaim its class independence and political independence.”10 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/956/attempt-to-go-round-already-existing-mass-organisations#10) That independence is always contrasted to the fact that the existing mass organisations are tied hand and foot to the ruling class. The CWI approvingly quotes a speaker at the launch as saying: “During the strike we saw the NUM, Cosatu, the ANC and SACP - none of them came to defend us. Instead they attacked us. It was the DSM alone that came to us when we were on the mountain, and stayed there with us to fight.”11 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/956/attempt-to-go-round-already-existing-mass-organisations#11)


But the Wasp/DSM policy of calling on workers to abandon the existing organisations of the class is clearly mistaken. The SACP, claiming just under 200,000 members, is the already existing mass workers’ party, albeit one that is completely under the bureaucratic control of leaders committed to the ANC-led tripartite popular front. Cosatu, which still enjoys the allegiance of millions of workers, is capable of leading militant trade union struggles, although they are always tempered by the perceived need to support the ‘party of liberation’, the bourgeois ANC.


In South Africa the unions are held back by ‘official communists’; in Britain by Labourites. It has always been the nature of the union bureaucracy to act as intermediaries between militant workers and the ruling class. But that does not lead us to call on workers to walk out and establish ‘pure’ replacements. Those replacements cannot but be affected by the tendency towards domination by the same bureaucratic caste.


There can be no short cut in the battle for working class bodies worthy of the name. We have to start where workers are currently organised and encourage them to fight to win back control of their unions. The setting up of rival unions will, self-evidently, result in fresh divisions and a weakening of our forces.
The same applies to the SACP. This, the largest ‘official communist’ party in the western world, attempts to keep workers loyal to the ANC through its ‘Marxist’ jargon about the “national democratic revolution” and talk of “building socialism now”. It will be impossible to win the mass of workers to the ideas of genuine, internationalist socialism without engaging with, taking on and defeating the SACP’s popular frontism. That, in my opinion, can only be done from the inside andthe outside. In other words, a combined strategy.
Marxist spine

What of the state of the DSM itself? How does it shape up to the task of providing Wasp with its “Marxist, revolutionary spine”?
Speaking at Socialism 2012, Alec Thraves, the SPEW comrade most involved with the CWI’s South African affiliate, stated that he believed the DSM’s membership had increased to around 100 following the organisation’s relative prominence during the miners’ strike wave.12 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/956/attempt-to-go-round-already-existing-mass-organisations#12)


During my recent visit to Cape Town, I met with comrade Michael Helu, the group’s representative in the city. While he believed that possibly up to 500 had expressed an interest in joining the DSM across the country, that was different from calling them members. In fact, the recruitment surge seemed to have passed Cape Town by: it still had only around six comrades, he said.
The DSM held its own conference over the weekend of February 9-11, attended by “about 60 members and visitors”, including comrades Taaffe and Thraves. The conference “adopted a target of reaching 300 paid-up members by September”, according to the DSM website.13 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/956/attempt-to-go-round-already-existing-mass-organisations#13) It goes without saying that the “delegates unanimously affirmed the DSM’s and mineworkers’ committees’ initiative to build the new Workers and Socialist Party as a broad socialist party in response to the lack of a working class political voice, which was apparent in the aftermath of the Marikana massacre”.


The commentary continues: “The conference was in many ways a rebirth of the CWI in South Africa. Based on the new and old members gathered over the weekend, we are confident that the DSM will be able to catch up with history - by continuing to grow its small forces into a true revolutionary party that can constitute the backbone of the beginnings of the Workers and Socialist Party.”
Meanwhile, the CWI has launched an appeal to raise £30,000 for the DSM, which will helping to finance the group’s “full-timers”. In fact the CWI already pays the wages of the DSM’s single full-timer - its effective leader, Liv Shange - to the tune of R3,000 (£214) a month. The appeal will also help ensure that the long-awaited next edition of the DSM paper, Izwi Labasebenzi, is produced (last published May-July 2012).
I do not wish to pour cold water over the attempt to build a new working class party in South Africa. In fact I welcome the fact that thousands of workers are questioning the established bodies and looking for an alternative. But there is no getting away from the serious shortcomings represented by this particular attempt. I am not just talking about the lack of any roots among the class of the DSM, the group upon which Wasp will have to depend (although, given the mass pro-socialist sentiment that exists, one million signatures is not an impossibility). Nor the gross inadequacies of the CWI version of ‘socialism’. I am talking most of all about the criminally divisive attitude to existing working class bodies.
The fight for a genuine party of the class must be fought in parallel with the fight to win back the unions and wrest the SACP from the control of the popular-front bureaucrats. Don’t turn your backs on Cosatu and the SACP. Demand that they break with the capitalist ANC and uphold the independent interests of the working class.
[email protected]

Notes

1. The words of general secretary Peter Taaffe, speaking at SPEW’s Socialism 2012 weekend school. See ‘Unity of the left can wait’Weekly Worker November 8 2012.
2. www.socialistworld.net/doc/6223 (http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/6223).
3. www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71654?oid=347787&sn=Detail&pid=71616 (http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71654?oid=347787&sn=Detail&pid=71616).
4. http://workerssocialistparty.co.za/?page_id=2.
5. Ibid.
6. www.socialistworld.net/doc/6223 (http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/6223)
7. According to spokesman Mamatlwe Sebei, quoted in City PressMarch 22.
8. http://workerssocialistparty.co.za/?page_id=2.
9. www.workersinternational.org.za/The%20Spark%2030.03.pdf (http://www.workersinternational.org.za/The%20Spark%2030.03.pdf).
10. Times Live March 22.
11. www.socialistworld.net/mob/doc/6237 (http://www.socialistworld.net/mob/doc/6237).
12. See ‘On a publicity high’ Weekly Worker November 8 2012.
13. www.socialistsouthafrica.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=102:democratic-socialist-movement-national-conference (http://www.socialistsouthafrica.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=102:democratic-socialist-movement-national-conference)

[Comrade Nasser]

Hey could this group be similar to these "Kill the Boer" guys? The subtitles indicate that they are singing about a "Communist Party Victory"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etXc6imX2ao

[Q]

Hey could this group be similar to these "Kill the Boer" guys? The subtitles indicate that they are singing about a "Communist Party Victory"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etXc6imX2ao

Seriously? The guy singing it is in ANC colors, sings about Tambo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Tambo) and Joe Slovo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Slovo) being in exile. This is obviously a video from before the end of apartheid or at least the song is from that era.

[Jolly Red Giant]

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/956/attempt-to-go-round-already-existing-mass-organisations (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/956/attempt-to-go-round-already-existing-mass-organisations)
You have to love the 'journalism' of the Weekly Worker - go to the CWI website, download a couple of articles and then proceed to pronounce to all and sundry the gospel from on high.

Fortunately the workers involved with WASP won't be bothering their head reading any of this nonsense.

The one thing worth commenting on is the WW's reflection on the SACP. To start with the membership figures for the SACP are more than a little questionable. Furthermore the SACP is mired in corruption through its involvement in the ANC directly, through its membership of the triumvirate and through it role in the leadership of COSATU and the 'baas boy' unions like the NUM. For example, the SACP is currently engaged in a power struggle within COSATU, not figthing to defend the interests of the members of COSATU but for control over its 'investment' wing in a battle between the anti-Zuma wing around COSATU General Secretary Vavi, and the pro-Zuma wing around the SACP and the unions it controls (NUM, NEHAW and SATAWU - all unions that have suffered serious splits to the left in recent months). The investment wing, Kopano Ke Matla, controls investments that run into billons of Rand - with many of the investments under the control of investment wings of trade unions controlled by the SACP. The SACP in modern day South Africa has more in common with a multinational hedgefund than it does with left-wing politics. It support base at this point is more the product of nepotism and corruption at local levels (getting jobs on government projects or NGOs) than on any real social base among the South African working class.

As for COSATU 'leading militant struggle' - it doesn't and hasn't for a long time. COSATU is fracturing all over the place - from the in-fighting over its financial pot of gold at the top - to on-going splits in its constituent unions - to demands from sections of COSATU to break from the SACP and the ANC etc. However, the only way the working class can advance in South Africa is through the removal of the SACP from the control it exercises in COSATU - the SACP has one focus and one focus only, maintaining ZUMA in power and increasing is influence over the large amounts of wealth that it has its hooks into.

Last point – and this has been said before – there are no guarantees with WASP. The objective is to try and build a new left party that can represent the interests of the South African working class. However, the building of such a party is not easy – it faces the full opposition of the South African elites, the ANC and SACP (the SACP, once it had decided that a compromise with the apartheid regime in 1986 was the only way to go - spent several years doing everything in its power to undermine the influence of the Marxist Workers Tendency – the forerunner of the DSM), the police, COSATU etc. etc. However, the crisis is so deep and the desperation of the working class so blatant that the building of a new left party is an absolutely vital task for all socialists in South Africa. Time will tell if this initiative is successful or not.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Police commissioner Riah Phiyega continues to engage in a whitewash of the Marikana massacre from the witness box at the Farlam Commission.

Photographic evidence was produced yesterday which showed that murdered strikers were unarmed when shot - while later photographs showed weapons lying beside the same bodies. Phiyega admitted that the police had placed the weapons beisde the bodies but then went on to claim that the police had originally removed the weapons to create a safe environment for paramedics. However, victims advocate Dali Mpofu demonstrated that paramedics were prevented from entering the scene for several hours after the massacre and only after the weapons had been placed on the bodies of those killed. Phiyega was once again criticised by Justice Farlam for her evasiveness and her concocting of evidence.

Later in evidence Dali Mpofu produced evidence that spent cartridges from an R5 rifle were found at the scene of the assassination in the Eastern Cape last week of a witness only days before the witness was due to appear at the Farlam Commission. Mpofu pointed out that the R5 rifle is only used by the South Africa police. When questioned Phiyega said that the police authorities were not investigating the possibility of the assassination being carried by a member of the police force and the tribunal lawyer for the police suggested that the only line of inquiry was that the assassination could have been carried out striking miners from Rustenburg (several hundreds of miles away) who had stolen an R5 rifle from the police. When questioned further Phiyega was unable to provide evidence to back up this claim.

[Comrade Nasser]

Seriously? The guy singing it is in ANC colors, sings about Tambo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Tambo) and Joe Slovo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Slovo) being in exile. This is obviously a video from before the end of apartheid or at least the song is from that era.

Just curious, sorry lol. Never really got into South African/Apartheid history. I stumbled on the video from that song "Kill the boer" and I got on that video and I thought it was funny.

[Jolly Red Giant]

The South African Democratic Union of Teachers are currently engaged in a 'go-slow' / 'work-to-rule' as part of a campaign to improve the quality of education and in opposition to attempts by the ANC government to tear up the current collective bargaining agreement.

The union is demanding the removal of Education Minister Angie Motshekga over the failure of the Department of Education to supply schools in the Limpopo region with textbooks and an attempt to impose a biometric monitoring system on teachers. The union is also demanding that the government implement a previous agreement to increase rates of pay of marking state examinations.

The actions by the teachers has been met with howls of condemnation not just from the ANC government but also the opposition Democratic Alliance who are demanding the ANC declare the strike action illegal and sack the teachers involved in the industrial dispute. Teachers in South Africa currently have 7 hours teaching per day and are obliged to do extra work over and above these seven hours (the average teaching day in Europe varies from 2.5 hours to 5 hours per day).

Meanwhile a constitutional court has ruled against attempts by Minister Motshekga to close dozens of smaller schools in thw Western Cape region.

In news from the Inquiry into the Marikana Massacre it has emerged that Police commissioner Riah Phiyega swore two seperate affidavits to the Marikana inquiry - affidavits that cotain conflicting information. Crucially the affidavits differed in their account of the communications between Phiyega and ANC Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa about the plans for 'policing' protests by striking miners at Marikana. During cross-examination Phiyega admitted that she had not read the affidavits before signing them.

And here is a good one -
The Chamber of Mines has contracted the National Research Foundation (NRF) — the country’s main research funding agency — to identify the socioeconomic drivers that caused the violence at Lonmin’s platinum mine last year where 34 miners were killed by the police.


Previous research conducted by the Bench Marks Foundation on living conditions around the Marikana area prior to the August tragedy rapped mining companies for their lack of corporate social responsibility. "Mining companies have moved away from ensuring local communities are empowered by providing adequate skills and education," chief researcher at Bench Marks Foundation David van Wyk said. The report found that living conditions in the area were dire and unemployment very high.

When asked whether the researchers would be breaking new ground or collating existing research, Andrew Kaniki, executive director of knowledge fields development at the NRF, said: "They will have to look at what other studies have been done and identify where there are gaps." He said that the researchers would need to be as objective as possible. "We need to understand the socioeconomic issues that caused Marikana, not just the reactions," he said.

[Luís Henrique]

left needs to get out of the 30s and 40s.

Of what century?

Luís Henrique

[Jolly Red Giant]

Teachers are continuing their go-slow in South Africa despite threats by the government (at the behest of the opposition Democratic Alliance) to declare the action illegal and engage in mass sackings.

500 rock-drillers at the Northam Platimum Zondereinde mine near Limpopo have refused a court edict declaring the two week-long strike illegal and demanding a return to work. Northam have now said they will sack all the striking workers. So far the strike has cost Northam over R50million in lost production. The workers are demanding a 30% pay rise. The strike began when Northam renaged on an agreement to pay the rock drillers an extra R15 for each hole they drilled on top of their basic salary.

2,000 workers at the construction site of the new (state owned power company) Eskom power plant at Kusile have been on strike for more than a week. This strike follows on from a recent similar ten week strike at another Eskom power site at Limpopo. The courts have declared the strike illegal however any attempts to sack the strike workers are likely to provoke solidarity action by the remaining 13,000 workers at the complex. While visiting the Eskom site at Limpopo the Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba declared that the labour agreements at Limpopo, Kusile and the Ingula pumped-storage project, in KwaZulu-Natal would ahve to be replaced by 'partnering agreements' that prevented strike action.

In a worrying development Dali Mpofu, advocate for the vicitims of the Marikana massacre at the Farlam Commission inquiring into the massacre, has been attacked and stabbed in the Eastern Cape while the Marikana Inquiry was in recess. Mpofu is in a serious but stable condition in hospital after suffering wounds to his chest and back. The police are claiming that the motive for the attack was robbery. The Farlam Commission have refused requests to reschedule the sittings of the Inquiry to facilitate Mpofu's reovery and attendance. A spokesperson for the government claimed that they needed to get the Inquiry out of the way as it was creating too much controversy.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Members of the NEHAWU have begun a nationwide strike after the collapse of pay talks between the NEHAWU and the University of South Africa. The union was demanding a 12% pay increase while the employers were offering a below inflation increase of 5.6%. The union has had very acrimonious relations with the university management. Last year the 55 member management committee of UNISA split bonuses worth R19million between them - at the same time the 4,500 workers in the university sector received bonuses amounting to just over double what the 55 member management committee pocketed.

The strike of 500 rock-drillers at the Northam Platimum Zondereinde mine near Limpopo is now in its third week despite threats by the company that they will sack the stiking workers. Northam have suffered R122million in revenue losses since the start of the strike.

In evidence at the Marikana Inquiry, Police Commissioner, Riah Phiyega has admitted that she met Lonmin management in the days leading up to the massacre of the striking mineworkers. During the meeting the police provided photographs of striking pickets and the Lonmin's head of security identified the strike leaders to Phiyega. In the aftermath of the meeting Phiyega deployed an extra 716 police officers to police the strike.

A service delivery protest is underway in Tembisa in the East Rand. More than 1,000 residents from the Winnie Mandela area of Tembisa are currently demonstrating. The residents of the area have barricaded entrances and exits to the area with make shift road bloacks and burning tyres. The residents didn't go to work, schools were shut down, businesses in the area were closed and taxis were barred from operating in the area. Chairperson of Ekurhuleni Concerned Residents Association (ECRA) Tsietsi Kukame said the municipality does not want to respond to their issues. “We handed over a memorandum two months ago to the ward councillor of the area and she promised to get back to us after 16 days, which she never did. If the municipality does not want to listen to us we will take the bucket toilets and drop them at their offices,” Kukame stated. A resident from the Winnie Mandela Informal settlement, Wilson Matabola, said that nothing has changed since 2003. “We have been in these poor conditions for over 10 years and the services have not been improved. There is no electricity, water and proper ablution facilities. We will do this every day until our demands are met,” he said in anger.

More than 200 former labour-broker employees and their families caused chaos in Pretoria’s inner city on Monday. The workers who were protesting had been employed by a subcontractor of the metro council but lost their jobs after the municipality did not renew the company’s contract. The police twice attempted to disperse the protesting workers using water cannon but succeeded in doing nothing more than provoking a riot that lasted most of the evening.

Domestic workers demonstrated outside the Department of Labour in Johannesburg on Saturday calling for better working conditions. The group, which is affiliated to the SA Domestic Services and Allied Workers' Union, was demanding better working and living conditions, and an end to sexual harrassment and rape of domestic workers. Demonstrators were carrying placards which read: “Stop sexual harassment and rape of domestic workers,” and “domestic workers are workers too”.

Protesting students were arrested last Monday following clashes with police and security guards at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Durban campus, as anger over accommodation again brought the institution to a standstill. The illegal protest began before 9am, when students called non-protesting students out of lectures. They marched through faculty buildings until all lectures had ceased.

Striking workers at the Durban and District Child Welfare Department picketed outside the organisation’s offices last week, demanding better wages and working conditions and calling for the executive director to quit. A strike leader, who asked that her identity be withheld for fear of being victimised, said staff were being exploited by the organisation and that funds were being used on non-essentials while salaries were kept low. “We have no job descriptions. Auxiliary workers have to do the work of social workers and sometimes even management,” said an unnamed striker.

Hundreds of Cape Town bus drivers are threatening strike action after the breakdown of pay talks with bus companies management.

[Jolly Red Giant]

NEHAWU members working for private healthcare company Netcare, throughout the country, have gone on strike. This follows the total collapse of wage negotiations. The negotiations commenced on the 30TH of January 2013, with the employer presenting a 5% wage increase in response to NEHAWU15% wage increase demand. The employer’s 5% wage increase offer was performance based and was duly rejected by the workers. NEHAWU revised their demand to 12% as mandated by the NEHAWU members and the employer responded with a revised offer of 6%.The negotiations continued and the union revised its demands to 11% with the employer responding by offering 7.2%.The employer’s offer was accepted by two other unions (HOSPERSA and DENOSA) organising at Netcare, but rejected by NEHAWU.

200 casual workers at the Post Offices Witspos branch in Johannesburg went on strike on Tuesday, demanding permanent employment by the company. It is feared that the strike could spread to other regions with strikes expected to break out in Cape Town in the next day or two.

Meanwhile the opposition Democratic Alliance has repeated it demands on the ANCV government that the members of SADTU be sacked for engaging in a work to rule. SADTU has announced that it wll escalate its work-to-rule with mass picketing and protest marches in Pretoria and Cape Town next week.

Staff at bus company Golden Arrow in Cape Town are planning to strike on Friday as pay talks over an 18% pay demand for all the company's staff collapsed. The company was offering a 6.5% wage increase. Workers are also demanding a housing allowance of R1800 to compensate for rising rents. Meanwhile the Break Through Investment (BTI) bus company in KwaZulu-Natal have sacked 40 striking bus drivers in a dispute over the use of inspectors on the companies buses.

Southern African Clothing & Textile Workers’ Union (Sactwu) is threatening strike action after five textile companies in the Newcastle region near Durban refused to pay agreed increases imposed by the National Bargaining Council For the Clothing Manufacturing Industry on all companies and employees. The provision included a minimum increase of 6.5% with a 10% increase applying in most cases. The main issue of conflict is the refusal of the textile companies to accept the banning of the 'retrenchment' of older workers and their replacement by new workers on an 'incentivised' (lower) wage rate.

At the Marikana Inquiry Poice Commissioner Riah Phiyega once again put both her feet into her mouth. Phiyega confirmed that the police had a standing order to video all public disturbances in an effort to demonstrate to the public that the police were using 'minimum force' to suppress unrest. Phiyega confirmed that the police at Marikana turned off all their video equipment (with the exception of two recordings in the background of the police deployment) three hours before the massacre took place. Rhiyega denied that this happened to hide the attacks on the striking workers using tear gas, rubber bullets, stun grenades and ultimately live rounds. Later Phiyega claimed that there was no evidence that the police were responsible for all 34 deaths on 16 August last year. Phiyega was ridiculed when the advocate for the dead miners, Dumisa Ntsebenza, produced a police report that confirmed that all 34 victims were killed by the police. When Phiyega was asked why she was unaware that the police had confirmed they were responsible for the 34 deaths Phiyega blew a gasket and said that she was being asked 'unfair questions' that she 'couldn't possibly answer'. She told the Inquiry no police officers had been arrested or suspended following the deaths. Phiyega also confirmed that she had confirmed an order to issue the police with R5 rifles and 'sharp-pointed ammunition' (used to shoot the striking workers) following a meeting with Lonmin management three days before the massacre.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Northam Platinum mine owners are threatening to sack 500 striking rock drillers unless they return to work by tomorrow. The threat is being backed by the South African Chamber of Mines who are worried the action at Northam could lead to a wave of new strikes as the collective bargaining agreement runs out at the end of June.

Over 1,000 people, mainly young people, are involved in a service delivery protest in Rietgat near Pretoria. Barricades were erected with burning tires and the windows of a bus was smashed out. Among other things the youths are protesting against local councillors who are hiring people from outside the area to do work with the local council. Police have used rubber bullets in an attempt (so far failed) to disperse the protest. Rioting is continuing this evening. Zuma has condemned the protests ‘saying people have a right to protest but not to damage property as its against the law. Clearly Zuma is more worried about property than the peoples’ lives he is destroying.

In the Elias Motsoaledi informal settlement in Soweto another thousand people including several hundred children have blockaded roads for the past three days. Some of the children, carrying placards with the words “Kill us like Andries Tatane, we don’t care,” and “We want houses and schools” (Andreas Tatane was killed at a service protest last year when police shot him point blank with rubber bullets – the police were acquitted of murder last week). Among other things residents are demanding cheaper electricity after profiteering by the supplier. Police moved in to disperse the protestors firing rubber bullets and injuring ten people. The police had to abandon plans to patrol the area during the night as the street lights had been turned off by the electricity company because the local residents were stealing the electricity. Residents claim the lack of lighting has led to a rise in crime. They also say the paraffin they must use as an alternative is expensive and causes problems like asthma. “For about 20 years we’ve been fighting for simple things, basic services,” said Lucky Ngobeni, one of the protest organisers. “We will wait for electricity, water, sanitation and housing.” The Elias Motsoaledi housing development project began in March 2011 with the promise of 1 463 RDP houses and 3 000 rental and bonded houses. But residents say they cannot afford to pay for houses that are not fully subsidised. They also claim that, although a portion of the settlement has had new houses built and utilities installed, no one has been moved in yet. “We are tired,” Ngobeni said. “We are saying enough is enough. They must respond.”

Meanwhile police are attempting to break up a large protest at the University of South Africa in Pretoria where a strike is underway by members of the NEHAWU. The striking workers have blockaded the entrance to the University.

More than 1,000 members of the NEHAWU are in their fourth day of strike against private health care provider, Netcare.

The threat of a nationwide transport strike strengthened today as the SATAWU and the TOWU have confirmed strike action beginning tomorrow.

At the Marikana Inquiry representatives of the families have condemned Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega for refusing to apologise for telling police to ‘applaud themselves’ for killing the 34 mine workers. Phiyega asked the advocate for the families to pass on her apologies which brought cries of derision from the relatives.

In an indication of the scale of corruption within the South African police force, the Institute of Security Studies has reported that more than 10,000 police officers are on paid suspension and a further 5,000 are on unpaid suspension

At the Annual Conference of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa the Deputy President, Christine Oliver, has asked delegates to refrain from referring to Maggie Thatcher as a prostitute. Oliver claimed that it was an insult to sex workers.

[Q]

Question: Where do you get all this news from? The WASP website itself (http://workerssocialistparty.co.za/) seems a little inactive, having just 8 articles since January (1 this month).

[Geiseric]

But unions exist to represent workers under capitalism. No capitalism = no unions. Unions have always defended capitalism because their raison d'etre is to operate within the system. Unions are an organisation form unique to capitalism.

So what's your point? We live in a capitalist society so due to "class struggle" there should be unions. since when did Marxists stop supporting their class? :confused: How is a general strike "operating within capitalism" btw? Union bureaucracies obviously try to play the game you're describing, but everybody knows about that. As soon as there's mobilization at the bottom the bureaucrats are could be powerless to stop things from happening.

[Geiseric]

Nationalized industry IS NOT socialism. Nationalization has never resulted in the abolition of the law of value or the end of the market or wage labor. As long as commodity exchange is governed by the law of value, you have a capitalist market, so Stalinists don't came at me with shit about the PRC or USSR being tru anti-reviseonist socilism in 1 country.
We should be for proletarian dictatorship through soviets.

Nobody except for you ultra lefts claims that nationalization is socialism in of itself. People in south africa don't give a shit about your high horse proposals for them to be "more socialist". They're getting stuff done, and if you lived down there and didn't help them then you should be called a sectarian, whom wouldn't really belong in a real communist party...

[Fionnagáin]

They're getting stuff done, sure. But so did, and do, the social democratic Stalinist parties. If all that's important is doing "stuff", then the entire history of socialist internationalism is nothing but a grand exercise in obstructionism. We would all, every poster on this forum, be rightly considered "sectarian".

[Comrade #138672]

@ the people who say nationalization is still Capitalism:

Doesn't it somewhat free them from Neocolonialism?

[Q]

@ the people who say nationalization is still Capitalism:

Doesn't it somewhat free them from Neocolonialism?

Interesting question. To begin with, I'd like to refer to a little pre-renegade loving (https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1909/power/ch09.htm):


We have already called attention to the fact that the Russo-Japanese war has inspired Eastern Asia and the Mohammedan world to throw off European capitalism. In this they are fighting the same enemy that the European proletariat is fighting. To be sure, we must not forget that while they are fighting the same enemy they are not fighting it with the same object – not in order to gain a victory for the proletariat over capital, but in order to substitute an internal national capitalism for an external one they are rising. We must not have any illusions on this point. Just as the Boers were the closest skinners of the people, so the Japanese rulers are the worst persecutors of Socialists and the Young Turks have already felt themselves compelled to proceed against striking workers. We must not take an uncritical attitude to the non-European opponents of European capitalism.

So, posing the question in this sense is like putting yourself between a rock and a hard place: Both sides suck. Furthermore, a genuine break with transnational capital would bankrupt and isolate the country.

Instead we need to pose, in the situation of South-Africa, the question of African unity as a way to not only positively overcome the "neocolonial question" (actually, it is more a question of the hierarchy of states, but ok), but also be able to build a more human society on the continent that is currently split over wars, tinpot dictatorships, poverty and disease.

Would that alone be able to overcome capital? Doubtful. But it would be a progressive step in the wider scheme of history in that it can rapidly develop the working class on the continent, unite it and, as such, make it strong.

[Geiseric]

They're getting stuff done, sure. But so did, and do, the social democratic Stalinist parties. If all that's important is doing "stuff", then the entire history of socialist internationalism is nothing but a grand exercise in obstructionism. We would all, every poster on this forum, be rightly considered "sectarian".

Thats not what I meant, they're getting stuff done in the right direction. They're getting the message and growing in consciousness faster than everybody in the U.S. and Europe, and this guy comes along saying that they're reformist? I'd say bite me, especially since not so many here actually participates in real activism because it's "reformist."

Nationalizing industries is a whole lot more than some basement leftist selling his ultra left newspaper, which people here don't get. If the mass mobilization can succeed in winning their goals they'll push for more. It all starts with this party, and the south african working class seeing it as a viable alternative to the CPSA and the ANC, both of whom are the actual reformists who are trying to kill the miners movement.

[Geiseric]

Interesting question. To begin with, I'd like to refer to a little pre-renegade loving (https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1909/power/ch09.htm):



So, posing the question in this sense is like putting yourself between a rock and a hard place: Both sides suck. Furthermore, a genuine break with transnational capital would bankrupt and isolate the country.

Instead we need to pose, in the situation of South-Africa, the question of African unity as a way to not only positively overcome the "neocolonial question" (actually, it is more a question of the hierarchy of states, but ok), but also be able to build a more human society on the continent that is currently split over wars, tinpot dictatorships, poverty and disease.

Would that alone be able to overcome capital? Doubtful. But it would be a progressive step in the wider scheme of history in that it can rapidly develop the working class on the continent, unite it and, as such, make it strong.

So you're not supporting a concrete group, but some idea which has no support with the actual people in south africa? Nice! No wait African unity is definitely the question of the day, we should go one step further and DENOUNCE the Workers party! Since they're reformists they're just as bad as the bourgeoisie right?

God I can't believe you're actually comparing a genuine, union backed workers party who wants to nationalize industries with the Imperial Japanese government! What a joke. Seriously.

[Tim Cornelis]

Thats not what I meant, they're getting stuff done in the right direction. They're getting the message and growing in consciousness faster than everybody in the U.S. and Europe, and this guy comes along saying that they're reformist? I'd say bite me, especially since not so many here actually participates in real activism because it's "reformist."

Essentially you are positioning an appeal to emotion, they are doing good work in terms action, therefore their content cannot or should not be criticised. But if you want to prove they are not reformist, you have to prove they are not reformist -- not that they are moving in the right direction, which are two separate arguments.

[Q]

So you're not supporting a concrete group, but some idea which has no support with the actual people in south africa? Nice! No wait African unity is definitely the question of the day, we should go one step further and DENOUNCE the Workers party! Since they're reformists they're just as bad as the bourgeoisie right?

God I can't believe you're actually comparing a genuine, union backed workers party who wants to nationalize industries with the Imperial Japanese government! What a joke. Seriously.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbzxt23X8c1r3zat8.jpg

[Geiseric]

Essentially you are positioning an appeal to emotion, they are doing good work in terms action, therefore their content cannot or should not be criticised. But if you want to prove they are not reformist, you have to prove they are not reformist -- not that they are moving in the right direction, which are two separate arguments.

you guys are saying that nationalization is reformist and shouldn't be supported. I can admit that technically as an act in and of itself it's obviously a reform. Anybody with a brain knows that. Capitalism in south africa can't function though if every major industry is nationalized. The capitalists in Venezuela are trying to roll back the nationalization that kept Chavez voted in for years, which was impossible due to how much venezuelans support it.

The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties.

They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.

They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.

But it is a reform that is fought against by the bourgeois and their buddy bureaucrats in the ANC and CPSA. The only people left supporting it is the grassroots working class who has been shot at for months for demonstrating. It seems like an obvious choice what I'd be doing if I were in South Africa, campaigning with the rest of my neighbors.

[Fionnagáin]

Thats not what I meant, they're getting stuff done in the right direction. They're getting the message and growing in consciousness faster than everybody in the U.S. and Europe, and this guy comes along saying that they're reformist? I'd say bite me, especially since not so many here actually participates in real activism because it's "reformist."
And, again, the very same thing is true of the social democrats and Stalinists. You may not feel that this is what you mean, but it is none the less what you are saying, the necessary conclusion of the proposition that "doing more = deserves support". It's an argument for reformism, and just because it's framed in a loose caricature of class politics- that it's a reformism with popular support, and opposed by the elite- doesn't change that.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Question: Where do you get all this news from? The WASP website itself (http://workerssocialistparty.co.za/) seems a little inactive, having just 8 articles since January (1 this month).
I am good with google

[Jolly Red Giant]

The nationwide bus strike by 18,000 workers is set to escalate significantly. Talks are due to take place tomorrow Wednesday but with the bus companies refusing to budge from their offer of 6.5% increase and the unions demnading an 18% incease commentators are expecting the talks to collapse as soon as they start.

If the employers do not increase their offer, unions representing railway workers, truck drivers and dock workers have indicated that they will join the strike by the bus workers. By the weekend a major national strike is on the cards involving, bus and rail transport and truck and shipping freight.

Teachers who are currently on a 'go-slow' will strike on Wednesday as part of their campaign. Over 3,000 teachers in the Eastern Cape alone are expected to strike and take part in protests. Youth and community groups as well as COSATU have called on school students to support the protests. Indications are that more than 25,000 workers will take part in protests in Pretoria and Cape Town.

Nightly rioting continues in the Elias Motsoaledi informal settlementas service delivery protestors battle police at barricades. The protestors have dug holes in the road to prevent the entry of police vehicles to Motsoadei. On Sunday the local council postponed a meeting intended to discuss improving services. 19 people have been arrested and a KFC was burned to the ground during rioting.

[Jolly Red Giant]

The Nationwide bus strike in south Africa is heading into its second week with the union rejecting an improved company offer of a 9% pay increase.

The strike at Netcare by members of the NEHAWU is now heading into a third week and is intensifying as Netcare go to court to try and get the strike declared illegal.

In one of the most disgraceful acts by any trade union on MayDay – the ‘baas-boy’ trade union – NUM – held a rally in Rustenburg that was addressed by Lonmin boardmember Cyril Ramaphosa. The richest black man in South Africa declared the Rustenburg was ‘NUM territory’. A few miles from where 34 striking mine workers were massacred by police – with Ramaphosa implicated in the massacre through emails between Lonmin and the police – he declared ‘we must declare Rustenburg Alliance territory. Rustenburg must be restored. This is the home of the African National Congress’ – not any more – no more than a few hundred attended the NUM rally. In the past twelve months more than 34,000 NUM members in the Rustenburg region have left the union to join the independent workers committees and the AMCU.

At a Mayday rally in Durban attended by a few hundred workers, Deputy Public Works Minister Jeremy Cronin – who is also deputy general-secretary of the South African Communist Party, attacked the AMCU as a vigilante union and attack the mining companies for breaking collective bargaining agreements and granting higher wages increases to striking mine workers. Cronin went on to blame the AMCU – not the police – for the Marikana massacre.

Several thousand workers attended an AMCU rally in Rustenburg and the Workers and Socialist Party held a rally in Carltonville – a mining areas south of Johannesburg.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Metro police officers in Tshwane went on strike on Mayday against changes to shift rosters. Samwu (SA Municipal Workers' Union) and IMATU (Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union) represent the officers who are striking against attempts to introduce 12 hour shifts instrad of the current 8 hour rosters. The strike has been declared illegal.

Impala Platinum, the world’s second largest producer is threatening to close several mining shafts and sack thousands of workers, blaming falling world prices for the increased number of loss-making shafts in operation. Workers representatives have accused Implats of using the falling market for platinum as an excuse to remove a militant workforce from the mine prior to the opening of wage negotiations next month.

Thousands of striking teachers protested in Pretoria and Cape Town threatening to extend their ‘go-slow’ into a full-blown strike unless the ANC government address their grievances. COSATU has been forced to back the striking teachers and is promising solidarity action in support of their demands. The opposition Democratic Alliance and Inkatha’s Buthelezi have condemned the strike action by teachers and called on the ANC to declare the teachers action illegal and engage in mass sacking of teachers if they escalate action.

Violent student protests, including the disruption of lectures, led to the evacuation of the premises and the arrests of 26 students at FET campuses in Pietermaritzburg last week. The students were arrested after ignoring instructions to disperse. Students trashed campuses, burnt tyres at entrances, threw stones and overturned garbage bins. At the Msunduzi campus in the CBD, students broke windows and doors of classrooms and libraries, and also set alight an FET vehicle parked on the premises. Students were protesting at the ‘deplorable living conditions and insufficient safety measures on campus’. Issues regarding students’ bursaries not covering their transport costs have also been raised, while students are unhappy with their quality of learning, claiming that many of their lecturers are unqualified. 26 students were arrested.

Police witnesses at the Marikana Inquiry have been accused of changing their testimony to fit with evidence presented to the Inquiry in an effort to deflect criticism of the actions of the police. George Bizos, advocate for the victims rounded on Major General Charl Annandale for repeatedly changing his testimony when he was demonstrated to be contradicting evidence already accepted by the Inquiry. In further evidence presented to the Inquiry, it was confirmed that the police Joint Operations Centre took the decision to ‘end’ the strike the day before the Massacre. Provincial police commissioner Lieutenant General Nosaziso Mbombo had taken the decision and communicated it to her deputy the night before. Annandale, who led the police's special tactical operations team, said he could not comment on the discussion between Mbombo and her deputy Major General William Mpembe. Briefing shown to the Inquiry showed Mbombo saying: "Today we are ending this matter" and police spokesman Captain Dennis Adriao is quoted as saying: "Today, unfortunately, is D-Day".

[Sudsy]

About time :grin:

[Jolly Red Giant]

South Africa Braces for 'Strike Season'

This month will see a series of sectoral wage contracts come up for discussion, kicking off South Africa's "strike season" which often sees both the employed and the jobless take to the streets.

With the country experiencing tough economic times and unions emboldened by hefty wage increases granted last year to end strikes, analysts predict difficult months ahead.

The shooting deaths of 34 striking platinum miners by police in one day last August has left simmering anger, against the backdrop of employer-labour relations that are the worst in the world according to World Economic Forum.

Charles Laurie, an Africa analyst with UK-based Maplecroft said workers' expectations are sky-high.

"The perception among workers that wildcat strikes are an effective and legitimate means of seeking wage concessions will increase their prevalence and intensity," he said.

Meanwhile mine owners have warned that job losses are in the pipeline. One firm alone, Anglo American, is expected to make an announcement on its plans to slash as many as 14,000 jobs next week.

Bad-blood between unions and business owners has been augmented by the emergency of newer more militant unions, which have challenged the primacy of groups that are seen as being in bed with business.

A recent report by the Daily Maverick website revealed that some union officials even had their homes paid for by mine bosses.

"Inter-union rivalries and the mushrooming of more militant unions, suggest that the extractive and transport industries may see further unrest," Laurie warned.

While the mining sector remains tense after last year's violence, the public sector is also seen as a potential flashpoint.

"I think the biggest risk for strikes this year comes from the public sector," said Adcorp labour economist, Loane Sharp.

More than 78 percent of public sector workers are unionised compared to 24 percent in the private sector, according to Adcorp's figures

http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2013/05/05/south-africa-braces-for-strike-season

[Jolly Red Giant]

Teachers withdraw Strike Threat and End Work-to-Rule after Government makes major concessions

Teachers, members of the SADTU have withdrawn their strike threat and ended their work-to-rule after forcing major concessions from the ANC government. the concessions include a reversal of the unilateral withdrawal of the rural allowance in Limpopo, reversal of the unilateral cuts made to norms and standards payments to schools in Limpopo; new negotiations around payment for matric markers; and salary parity between teachers and the rest of the public service.

"Allegations of corruption" levelled against the director-general and other officials of the department of basic education shall be referred to the Public Service Commission.

[Jolly Red Giant]

The Bus strike in South Africa has ended with SATAWU accepting a 10% pay increase offer from employers. However, there appears to be considerable disquiet among many bus drivers with the settlement. Rumours are emerging that some drivers are leaving SATAWU and joining the more radical NTM that is affiliated to the Workers and Socialist Party. The drivers had initially demanded an increase of 18%.

Reports are emerging that off duty police are operating as security guards armed with shotguns for scab companies attempting to break strikes. The cops are being paid in excess of R1,000 per day for their scab breaking activities. For contrast purposes – during the Marikana strike the government and mine owners dismissed demands by striking miners for a pay rate of R12,500 per month.

A strike by bin workers in Johannesburg, working for private company Pikitup has been declared illegal. The workers, members of SAMWU, are striking over a range of issues including biometric access control measures and breathalyser tests for staff. The strike ended on Monday after protests by workers with the company agreeing to negotiations.

A union representing farmworkers has threatened that strikes in De Doorns (near Cape Town) are set to resume before the end of the month. The Food and Allied Workers’ Union (Fawu) has accused some farmers in the grape growing valley of using labour brokers to replace permanent and seasonal staff now that the labour intensive harvest season has ended. Katishi Masemola, Fawu’s general secretary, called it a concerted “cleansing process” to get rid of workers who vocally demand that the new minimum wage (R105 a day) be adhered to. The accusation is that some labour brokers are providing workers for R80 to R90 a day.

Hundreds of Ekurhuleni (East Rand) Metro police went on strike on Monday in protest over wages. They want salary parity similar to their counterparts in other municipalities. About 300 officers took to the streets of Germiston in what the municipality called an illegal strike. The municipality has threatened to take action against the officers. Metro police in Durban received about R6000 more than in Ekurhuleni and the gap was R4000 with those in the city of Johannesburg at the entry level.

The prospect of major delays reoccurring in South Africa’s ports due to labour unrest appears to be increasingly likely as workers in a range of sectors across the country become ever-more militant. Guy Lundy, deputy chairman of the Western Cape Investment and Trade Promotion Agency in South Africa, said that extremely violent labour action seen at some of the country’s mines last year could have the effect of inducing other unions to engage in industrial unrest. Lundy blamed the decision of Lonmin to concede a 22% pay increase fuelled pay demands.

Police reports indicated that over 650 large scale protests have occurred in the province of Gauteng over the past five weeks. A service deliver protest in Mooiplaas, south of Pretoria, on Sunday saw the death of a one-year old baby with his mother seriously wounded after a shot fired by the police ricocheted and hit the victims. Video footage emerged of police in the area taking bribes from robbers who were stealing from local residents. The shot was fired when protestors attacked two men thought to have been involved in the bribery and crime in the area.

A number of serious developments have occurred in relation to the Marikana Inquiry. Evidence has emerged that police officers went to local commanders three days before the Marikana massacre demanding revenge for the deaths of two police officers who were killed as they tried to kidnap strike leaders in the mining shantytowns. It was claimed that the officers threatened to shoot the local commander if he didn’t take immediate action to revenge the deaths.

On Saturday night Steve Khululekile, a regional organiser for the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) was assassinated in Photsaneng village near Rustenburg near AmPlats Khomanani mine. Strike action is threatened at the mine as a result of Amplats intention to sack 6,000 mineworkers in ‘retrenchment’. Two men walked into a local tavern and singled out Khululekile before shooting him several times. Khululekile was a key witness and due to give evidence at the Marikana Inquiry next week. Mineworkers who are members of the workers committee in the area claimed that the NUM were responsible for the assassination. Allegations have emerged that the assassination was prompted by the intervention of Cyril Ramaphosa who spoke to a small crowd of a few hundred at a MayDay event in Rustenburg were he claimed that the NUM ‘owned Rustenburg’ and they should drive out the AMCU.

Another witness Lungani Mabutyana, a rock drill operator, who had been subpoenaed to give evidence was found dead in an apparent suicide last week after been found hanging from a tree on the Small Koppie where many of the Marikana victims were murdered last year. Mabutyana had escaped from police shooting at striking workers on the day of the massacre and had seen many workers murdered by police. Mabutyana had been among the 270 workers arrested after the massacre and was tortured during a two week detention period. He had lost his job on 7 March as part of a ‘retrenchment’ programme despite an agreement that workers signing a retention contract were exempt from losing their jobs. The company claimed it had never received the contract despite Mabutyana having a copy signed by a human resources manager. Mabutyana’s cousin said that he had borrowed money from loan sharks in order to buy food and had only just got back his passport and identity papers after repaying the loans with family help. Mabutyana had made two previous suicide attempts because of debts owed to loan sharks. Illegal loan sharks are rampant in many mining communities preying of workers and their families left penniless because of company retrenchment policies.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Lucky Ngobeni, the chairperson of Motsoaledi Concerned Residents, was arrested on May 2 by Diepkloof police as a clear attempt at silencing the on-going struggle for housing and electricity in this Soweto community. Ngobeni’s arrest follows the police murder of Motsoaledi resident Xolani Mtshikwana on April 21 and the arrest on the same day of 17 witnesses to his shooting. Mtshikwana died, and three others were hospitalised, as they were shot with rubber bullets in their yards hours after a community protest for housing, which involved the stoning of cars, had ended.

The arrest of Ngobeni was instigated by a local ANC figure, against whom Ngobeni had laid charges the previous Sunday after he was attacked and stabbed without provocation while mobilising for a community mass meeting. Ngobeni received treatment at the Lilian Ngoyi Community Health Centre for his wounds

Returning from the court appearance of the arrested residents today, Ngobeni was arrested when he arrived at the Diepkloof police station after being requested by the SAPS to provide further information in the case against the ANC member. The apparent collusion between the ruling party and the SAPS is deeply worrying.

Lucky Ngobeni who has been leading the struggle of Motsoaledi Residents for several years is actively campaigning to build the Workers and Socialist Party in the area. The Masakhane Community Forum, which unites the Motsoaledi Concerned Residents with the nearby organised community of Freedom Park, has recently led the residents of the Elias Motsoaledi squatter camp next to Bara hospital in Soweto in a series of protests for access to housing, electricity and sanitation.

[Jolly Red Giant]

In the aftermath of the assassination of AMCU organiser, Mawethu Khululekile Steven, in Marikana over the weekend, a wildcat strike involving 10,000 mineworkers has broken out at the Lonmin mine in Marikana. Following the killing of Steven, two brothers were shot nearby - the NUM claim that one of those killed was an NUM shop-steward. The striking workers are demanding the the closing of the offices of the NUM at the Lonmin mine. Striking workers have occupied the mineshafts and operations have closed down at the mine. There has been a major mobilisation of police in the Region and confrontations between police and striking workers have already taken place as workers attended a rally at the Wonderkop stadium in Marikana. Water cannon, a number of police vans, and Nyalas were deployed outside the stadium. Striking workers chanted “Police are dogs. They must leave”.

As the striking workers gathered in the Small Koppie where 34 workers were massacred last year many chanted "Down with NUM, we will destroy it today."

Lonmin issued a statement this evening threatening to sack workers if the strike didn't end immediately.

[blake 3:17]

@JRG -- Do you want to start a South African miners thread in Ongoing Struggles? That'd make more sense than this thread.

[uk_communist]

Good! I hope an Anarchist/Communist/Socialist society does take deep roots into African soil. It's about the time the people had good, and they've got a new start for it. Best of luck do the WSP!! :)

[Jolly Red Giant]

@JRG -- Do you want to start a South African miners thread in Ongoing Struggles? That'd make more sense than this thread.
The thread isn't just about the miners - but if you want ot move the stuff over to that forum be my guest.

[blake 3:17]

The thread isn't just about the miners - but if you want ot move the stuff over to that forum be my guest.

No, I understand that, and that's why I suggested OS rather than Workers Struggles. It's a political fight because of the nature of the tripartite alliance. And, internationally, there's still a challenge of daring to criticize the ANC or COSATU on anything. Obviously the miners are going to be in the lead of any working class challenge.

[Jolly Red Giant]

No, I understand that, and that's why I suggested OS rather than Workers Struggles. It's a political fight because of the nature of the tripartite alliance. And, internationally, there's still a challenge of daring to criticize the ANC or COSATU on anything. Obviously the miners are going to be in the lead of any working class challenge.
As I said - feel free to move the thread if you feel it appropriate

[Jolly Red Giant]

Just as 37,000 workers at the Lonmin Platinum mine in Marikana ended a two day strike that forced the company to recognise the AMCU as the main union in the mine - workers at Anglo American Platinum's (AmPlats) mines in Rustenburg are set to take immediate strike action against plans by the company to cut 6,000 jobs. The strike is being organised by the independent workers strike committee in Amplats. "The committee will meet today [Thursday] to discuss the issue and there is a strong possibility that the night-shift will not go underground," said committee member Evans Ramokga. He said the company was not backing down on retrenchments, and workers had taken it upon themselves to fight. "Unions have done their part and negotiated on our behalves. Now the workers have decided to lead their cause. No one is happy about the retrenchments." He said after mass meetings at different shafts, workers decided to go on strike. "Workers are saying if Amplats cannot run the mines they must leave..." Not surprisingly the NUM rejected a call by the independent workers committee for all union members in Rustenburg to support the strike action.

http://www.socialistworld.net/img/article/2012-10-17Grafik3556115880500373173.jpg
Photo- Evans Ramokga (far right) with Mametlwe Sebei of the Democratic Socialist Movement (second from left) and Alec Thraves of the Committee for a Workers International (far left) speaking during strikes in Rustenburg last october.

Meanwhile an underground sit-in by 169 miners at Amplats Tumela Mine in Amandelbult, Limpopo, continues - the miners are demanding the payment of agreed bonuses.

Major pressure has begun to develop on the ANC going into next year's election with support rising for demands from the Democratic Socialist Movement and the Workers and Socialist Party for the nationalisation of the country's mining industry.

The ANC government is planning to send a delegation of government ministers to Rustenburg to 'investigate' the latest unrest - however acting Minister in the Presidency, Edna Molewa, admitted that the government delegation would be 'unwelcome' in Rustenburg. She continued "We are concerned that this is not just affecting Marikana, it's not just affecting Rustenburg, but the entire country, even from an economic and market point of view."

KwaZulu-Natal campuses of Unisa reopened on Monday morning after a nationwide strike over salary increases. The impasse has been resolved with Unisa and the National Education, Health, and Allied Workers' Union (Nehawu) agreeing to a 7 percent hike. The protests began on Unisa’s Pretoria campuses the previous Tuesday. The campuses in Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Richards Bay joined the strike action on Friday, and were closed.

Confusion reigns over reports that five people have been killed in Amsterdam in Mpumalanga during service delivery protests. Widespread rioting took place on Wednesday with police denying claims by protestors that people were shot and killed during the rioting.

The Gauteng police commissioner Mzwandile Petros is threatening to escalate police responses to continuing service delivery protests. Earlier this week Petros admitted that more than 560 seperate service delivery protests had taken place over the previous 40 days. State Security Minister Siyabonga Cwele told Parliament on Tuesday., “As a state we can no longer tolerate such abuse.” he wnt on to quote ANc leader Jacob Zuma's 2009 State of the nation address where Zuma had called on the security service to restore the authority of the state. Petros admitted that police were stretched and finding it difficult to contain the protests. He stated his belief that as the elections draw nearer, the number of protests are set only to increase.

Residents of Dalton Hostel in durban plan to take to the streets on Saturday to protest against the Metro Police and its head, Eugene Nzama. The march follows a metro police raid on the hostel two weeks ago when R15 800 and goods were allegedly stolen by officers.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Operations at a chrome mine in South Africa owned by chemicals group LANXESS have been suspended since Thursday after workers started an illegal strike over bonus payments. The dispute at the mine in Rustenburg, 120km northwest of Johannesburg, adds to growing labour tensions around South Africa’s platinum belt, which are set to intensify over looming job cuts and wage talks in the sector. The 'baas boy' NUM are trying to get the workers to abandon the strike and return to work.

The strike at the AmPlats mines over threatened job losses in Rustenburg planned for Friday was postponed pending talks with management. 169 workers staging an underground strike at Amplats Tumela Mine returned to the surface on Friday after meetings with management about their greviences.

[Jolly Red Giant]

In a serious development at least 20 mine workers were injured when security guards opened fired with rubber bullets on a group of 500 striking chrome mine workers at the Laxness Chrome Mine in Rustenburg on Tuesday. The attack on the striking workers took place only a short distance from the site of the Markiana massacre last year. The miners had been on strike since Saturday and were marching to the mine when the security guards opened fire. 10 of the victims ended up being hospitalised.

6,000 workers at the Mercedes-Benz plant in East London went on strike for two days in the opening savlos in the campaign by the National Union of Metalworkers for a 22% increase for metalworkers across the entire economy. It was the first strike at Mercedes-Benz for 24 years. The strike was provoked by attempt by the company to outsource it logistics department.

As with the mining sectors, 30,000 automotive workers are also coming to the end of their collective bargaining agreement. Unlike in 2010/2011 when the negotiations were choreographed by the companies and the compliant unions – this years ‘negotiations’ are expected to provoke widespread strike action across the South African economy.

AmPlats have announced today that they will begin their ‘retrenchment’ of 6,000 jobs this week. The sacking of workers is likely to provoke strike action by anything up to 130,000 miners in the AmPlats combine.

Demonstrating the utter degeneration of the South African Communist Party,SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande speaking at a meeting organised by the NUM stated that the AMCU and the workers committees were nothing but a group of “vigilantes and liars”. He went on to claim that workers had left the NUM because of intimidation and demanded the police deal with the ‘vigilantes’. Nzimande then went on to attack some trade union leaders of attempting to drive a wedge between COSATU and the ANC. He continued "These habits of recklessly attacking the ANC are irresponsible. Those who say they do so because they are independent are wrong. There is no independence in the alliance." Nzimande concluded by saying that when “fighting corruption in the NUM and the ANC we must be careful not to project the organisations as corrupt themselves”.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Approximately 10,000 Southern African Clothing & Textile Workers' Union (SACTWU) members from the clothing industry, mainly in KwaZuluNatal, have yesterday and today embarked on protected strike action against member companies of the United Clothing & Textile Association (UCTA). This ‘warning' strike was in protest against UCTA's continued undermining of the clothing bargaining council and their continued payment of wages below the legally prescribed levels. The prescribed minimum starting wage is as low as only R414 per week.

The NUM has admitted for the first time the collapse in the unions membership – an NUM report indicates that the ‘baas boy’ union lost 78% of its membership and 69% of it revenue at Implats and Gold Ore. According to the report, members' attitude towards the NUM had changed. They did not believe that the union was fighting for their collective interests as strongly as it previously did and that the potential losses could be as high as 60% of the membership (approx 200,000 members). The NUM has also accused the Metalworkers union (one of the more radical unions still in COSATU) of poaching NUM members.

ANC General Treasurer, Zweli Mkhize, has launched a vicious attack on mine workers who have abandoned the NUM. Mkhize blasted "anarchic" unions, saying mining companies need not give in to scare tactics and claimed that 57,000 jobs could have been created without the strikes (no one believes him). Mkhize claimed that "The unity of the alliance (triumvirate of ANC, SACP and COSATU) was paramount and that nothing should disturb it," The ANC have begun to panic that it will lose its two-thirds majority in the elections.

Meanwhile Jacob Zuma, has called on the political elite in Rustenburg to pare the expectations of mineworkers, or risk wrecking the country's economy. Zuma was quoted in a speech in the House of Traditional Leaders as calling for its members to help workers understand the consequences of demanding high increases in wages. Excessive wage demands would result in civil strife and job losses, he said.

Janitors responsible for cleaning communal toilets protested in an unusual way by burning tyres and dumping human faeces on the lanes of Cape Town’s N2 motorway, stopping the traffic for hours. On Monday, more than 100 employees of sanitation service provider Sannicare took to the major highway, causing chaos and blocking the road from 4am to 9am between Airport Approach and Mitchells Plain. Sannicare spokesman Colin Priem said that the workers went on an unprotected strike on 2 April 2013 and were dismissed last month. One of the axed Sannicare employees, Thabo Dlephu, said in February 2013 that he was supposed to earn R6,900 but in the previous month he received only R3,900, “This is not right and we will protest and shut down roads until our situation is sorted out,” he said. Police intervened using water cannons and rubber bullets to disperse the protestors. After the N2 was re-opened the strikers moved to Barcelona informal settlement, where they also burned tyres and dumped portable toilets.

Angry staff members from the Musina hospital in Limpopo chased out the hospital's clinical manager, Dr Alec Dube, last Thursday, alleging that he refused to provide anti-retrovirals (ARVs) to rape victims. The staff members alleged that Dr Dube refused to attend to sick young women who wanted to undergo womb cleansing after undergoing illegal abortions. It is alleged that he refused to treat foreign nationals, saying that the budget did not allow for foreigners to be treated here in South Africa. "He chased away three doctors from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), saying they were incompetent," said a staff member. Nurses at the hospital also threw out their chief executive officer, Simon Netshivhambe, alleging that he had appointed two managers for a year in acting positions that didn't exist. " The two managers got close to R200 000 per year. Netshivhambe was always defending Dr Dube. The CEO also doesn't want doctors from the Congo and that is why he deliberately didn't renew the contracts of the three Congolese doctors. If the Department of Health sends them back, we will intensify the protest," they said.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

It's amazing what's going on in South Africa right now in terms of workers struggles. Thanks for these updates, JRG.

[Jolly Red Giant]

The ANC has continued its efforts to bolster the ‘baas boy’ NUM. Speaking at a gathering for the National Union of Mineworkers, historically the largest mining union with ties to the ruling African National Congress, Minister of Mineral Resources Susan Shabangu said "forces" were attempting to eradicate the union. "We are very much aware that you are effectively under siege by forces that are determined...to defeat you," Ms. Shabangu told a gathering of the National Union of Mineworkers. "It is only those who are wilfully blind who will not see that these forces, by extension, want to realize one major objective: ultimately to defeat and dislodge the ANC from power." After meeting with the NUM Shabangu went on to a meeting with the Chamber of Mines and CEOs of the mining companies where they discussed the wage demands of mine workers. Their deliberations were not disclosed.

Assisting the ANC were COSATU. The current “attack” on the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is history repeating itself, COSATU general-secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Thursday. “It's not the first time the union is put up for brutal assault by counter-revolutionary forces,” Vavi told the NUM central committee meeting in Pretoria. “The UDM and others know the only way to deal with the liberation forces led by the tripartite alliance is to kill its most potent weapon - the NUM.” “(We) pledge our total support and solidarity as you battle against both the mine bosses and a rival, breakaway union,” Vavi told the NUM

[Jolly Red Giant]

Striking South African workers at a chrome mine owned by German chemicals group Lanxess have signed a deal to end a week-long illegal walkout, after winning a one-off payment from the latest company to give in to militant labour pressure. The workers had walked out last week over the non-payment of bonuses. Lanxess joins a long line of mining companies who have caved in to militant strike action by workers.

The National Union of Metalworkers is threatening immediate strike action at the Volkswagon plant in Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape. VWSA have sacked members of the NUMSA during the past week and the union is demanding the reinstatement of those dismissed.

ANC Mining Minister Susan Shabangu, has criticised mining companies for caving into ‘illegal’ strikes blaming them for the violence that has occurred in the mining areas over the past 12 months. Saying that if they had stuck to collective bargaining agreement the illegal strikes would have ‘played out differently’ – indeed, the death toll could have been much higher.

A major scandal is erupting that could engulf the regional ANC organisations. Investigations into ghost workers – wages being paid to workers who don’t exist – has uncovered at least 30,000 ghost workers in the Limpopo Department of Health alone. The scam is being used to siphon off Rmillions. Last month, police arrested six Education Department officials for allegedly creating ghost teachers and pocketing their salaries. Given the control the ANC exercises over provincial government and state bureaucracy it is unlikely that this scam could have originated outside of individuals involved in ANC nepotism.

More than 36 innocent children have died from botched initiation circumcision in in Limpopo and Mpumalanga.

The North Gauteng High Court has ordered the municipal manager of the Vhembe District Municipality, Mr. Masala Makumule, to restore water to the community of Makhado in Limpopo within 90 days. The order follows Civil rights organisation AfriForum's urgent application before the court, as the Vhembe Municipality failed - in terms of last year's order- to provide water to the community. The Makhado Town and Tshikota Location have been experiencing water shortages for several years. Sections of Makhado have been without water for months. Residents say they have been without water for three months while other sections have been without water since last week.

Residents of Ward 30 at Cato Manor in Durban are protesting and burning tyres in the vicinity of Bellair and Francois Roads in central Durban. Durban Metro Police spokesperson Sibonelo Mchunu says the community is complaining about the Ward Councillor and service delivery in their area. "Since early hours of this morning our members attended a protest by the community of Ward 30 along the road of Bellair and Francois, there was a protest where people were burning tyres. Service delivery protests started in Residentia on Monday and spread to surrounding areas including Evaton, Orange Farm and Sebokeng, south of Johannesburg, with some residents blocking roads with rocks. Police engaged in mass arrests on Friday picking up almost 100 people accusing them of looting.

FRUSTRATED residents of Hopewell, 20 km south of Pietermaritzburg, were subjected to rubber bullets and teargas as police dispersed their illegal protest. Schools in ward three were closed for the day as protesters blockaded the main road with rocks and burning tyres in a service delivery protest. The protest began at about 3 am Wednesday. Residents of an old-age home also became victims of the protest action when they were affected by the teargas.

The Janitors who dumped raw sewerage on the N2 motorway in Cape Town last Tuesday returned on Thursday littered the highway with rubbish and burning tyres.

[Jolly Red Giant]

THOUSANDS of teachers in KwaZulu-Natal are threatening to down tools if the province's education department continues to ignore their demands. The teachers made the threat during a march in Durban at the weekend when they also called for "a living wage" for Grade R teachers, most of whom are National Teachers Union (Natu) members. Natu wants the department to pay Grade R teachers R7000 a month instead of the of R5000 (up from R4000) it had previously announced. Natu deputy president Allen Thompson said the raise was not enough. "We demand that they be employed permanently and enjoy benefits similar to other government employees," Thompson said. "We also want the department to adjust salaries with effect from April 1 2011 and pay them R7000. "The department must also recognise their qualifications just like the other provinces in the country do," he said

The KZN Health Department’s emergency medical response service could come to a standstill in a few weeks if paramedics’ demands are not met. Speaking for 300 state paramedics from 11 districts in KwaZulu-Natal who protested in Durban on Friday, axed paramedic Sifiso Dlamini (Dlamini was sacked in February of organising a go-slow) said that if the department failed to respond to their memorandum in seven days, they would shut down emergency services on June 18. One of the paramedics’ grievances is overtime. “We work 173 hours but are only paid for 160,” said Sthembiso Xaba, a paramedic from KwaMashu. She added that their lives were in danger, yet the department was not paying them the danger allowance due to them. “Sometimes we arrive at the scene and people are hostile, they throw stones at us. Instead of our safety being the number one concern, the department is more concerned about damage to its vehicles. “We would not be here if we did not love what we do, but they are making fools of us.” She said the once-off payment of danger allowances offered by the department was “an insult” and that the unions which had agreed to it were “selling us out”.

The AMCU is threatening renewed strike action at Lonmin’s mine in Marikana after the collapse of talks with the mine owners over recognition got the AMCU as the majority union at Marikana and the vacating of the NUM offices. AMCU leader Joseph Mathunjwa said they intended to apply for protected industrial action unless the company acceded to the union’s demands.

Workers in the Lanxess chrome mine in Rustenburg have returned to work after the company agreed to pay performance bonuses that had previously been agreed.

National police commissioner Riah Phiyega is back in the hot-seat at the Marikana Inquiry being cross examined by advocate for the wounded and arrested miners, Dali Mpofu. Phiyega is not ready to acknowledge and apologise for the police action in Marikana last year, the Farlam Commission of Inquiry heard on Monday. “Your attitude is typical of the undesirable behaviour of officialdom. You don't acknowledge and apologise, even for the blatant instructions,” said Dali Mpofu, for the wounded and arrested miners. “You haven't said sorry. All you have said is that you never said that you are not sorry,” Mpofu said while cross-examining her.

The families of mineworkers killed during the Marikana unrest walked out of the Farlam Commission of Inquiry on Thursday during the continued cross-examination of national police commissioner Riah Phiyega. The families stood up and walked out of the Rustenburg Civic Centre when Phiyega repeatedly failed to answer questions about video footage played to the commission. Phiyega said that just because the police had not immediately stopped shooting, did not mean they were not being compliant. She said the video should be viewed in context and that the commission should remember the “spirit of what was happening”. She refused to say whether the comment by the police official was irresponsible. “The context and situation doesn't allow me to judge that,” she said. Mpofu said he would submit that Phiyega was evading the questions. In earlier cross-examination, Phiyega told the commission the weapons were removed for the safety of the paramedics. She said she could not say whether paramedics were already at the scene when the weapons were removed. She denied that the police's removal of the weapons could be taken as tampering with a crime scene. In the clip, police are seen dragging people from the scene. A police official is seen placing a boot on the head of one protester. When the video was first played, Phiyega said the boot was placed above the person's head and not on top of him. However, when the video was played again, Phiyega acknowledged that the boot was on the person's head. She said the commission should remember that the police officials deployed to Marikana had worked under difficult circumstances.

Protesters blocked roads near Cape Town International Airport on Monday morning despite an interim interdict banning such behaviour, the City of Cape Town said. The Western Cape High Court last week granted the city an interdict against 89 former employees of toilet service company Sannicare and seven people associated with the ANC Youth League. ANCYL regional chairman Khaya Yozi denied last week that its members had played any part in the toilet dispute. Utility services mayoral committee member Ernest Sonnenberg said on Monday that the sheriffs of the High Court or the SA Police Service were required to stop any conduct in contempt of the court order.

About 42,000 police administrative staff will protest this week to demand that the SA Police Service (SAPS) honour an agreement to change their salary grades, Popcru said on Monday. Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) general-secretary Nkosinathi Theledi said its members had mandated it to lead marches in all provinces across the country. "Popcru demands that the employer implements an agreement signed in 2011 at the Safety and Security Sectoral Bargaining Council, which states that public service employees should be translated (sic) into the SAPS Act," he said

[Jolly Red Giant]

Todays post contains an update of the work of the Democratic Socialist Movement (Committee For A Workers International - CWI) and the Workers and Socialist Party in South Africa and contains commentary on the rioting in Orange Farm last Friday.

The application by the Workers and Socialist Party of South Africa for registration as a political party has finally been approved by the Electoral Commission in South Africa. The registration will be formally recognised after a 30 days appeal period where voters can lodge objections to the registering of the party.

There is growing media attention over the impact of the Workers and Socialist Party. After being established on the initiative of the Democratic Socialist Movement and six of the independent workers committees in the Rustenburg mining areas the WASP now has the support of the national independent workers committee and independent workers committees across the platinum belt of Rustenburg, across Limpopo North West, Gauteng and Mpumalanga. The National Transport Movement (NATAWU – a 20,000 strong revolutionary trade union that has split from the SATAWU) has affiliated to the WASP and leading members of the NATAWU are playing a prominent role in promoting and building the WASP. The NATAWU asked the DSM to organise political education programmes for NATAWU shop stewards. In explaining why she supported the WASP, one worker commented: "These people have been with us through thick and thin". Over the past three months members of the WASP have been interviewed dozens of times on national radio and TV. The government are clearly concerned with the potential impact of the WASP. The Deputy President of the ANC himself commented: "We keep hearing about the... [WASP]...or whatever and that seems also to be fanning the flames." While addressing the National committee of the ‘baas boy’ NUM, ANC treasurer general Zweli Mkhize said "Cosatu unions and the formation of new rival unions are connected to the broader attack on the ANC itself. This is how we understand the formation of the so-called Workers' and Socialist Party (Wasp) which was preceded by the formation of Amcu…We understand these developments as part of the propaganda advanced by immature left-wing idealists that the ANC has become anti-workers and, therefore, should not continue to lead society. We must all work hard to regain lost ground," What the ANC and the media don’t realise is that it is the South African working class that are fanning the flames and demanding action from WASP.

Despite its small size the Democratic Socialist Movement has played a crucial role in developing the independent workers committees and the struggle of the miners. After initially claiming that the DSM jumped on the bandwagon after the Marikana massacre, the South Africa media have been forced to admit that the DSM was active and engaging in solidarity work with mine workers for the past number of years. The role of the DSM is recognised by thousands of mine workers and the two largest branches of the DSM in the village of Chaneng in Rustenburg next to the Royal Bafokeng Platinum mine, and the Wedela branch, in a township outside Carletonville in the shadow of the Harmony Gold Kusaselthu shaft, contain many of the strike leaders from recent struggles. In a country where less than 3% of the population have internet access the DSM newspaper, Izwi Labasebenzi (We are the Workers) plays a crucial role outlining developments and providing political analysis in the mines and the surrounding townships. As during the struggle against apartheid when the paper of the Marxist Workers Tendency Inqaba Ya Basebenzi (Workers Fortress) became the most widely read political journal, Izwi Labasebenzi is taking up that role in the struggle against capitalism in South Africa.

The main focus of the work of the WASP at the moment is the building of a workers movement to prevent ‘retrenchment’ in the mining industry and the sacking of tens of thousands of mineworkers. WASP is also engaged in organising service delivery protests in many communities from Thula’ Mntwana, Orange Farm, and Kliptown to Khutsong where residents are protesting against poor service delivery, electricity cut-offs and evictions.

In recent days the South African media have attempted to portray that WASP was responsible for xenophobic attacks and looting of foreign owned shops in the Orange Farm and nearby Sebokeng townships. WASP has been involved in campaigning against the eviction of residents of hundreds of new RPD (Reconstruction and Development Programme) homes built in Thula ‘Mntwana. In total 1030 housing units were built and completed in March 2013. They were supposed to be allocated to local residents. Instead ANC bureaucrats saw an opportunity to exploit the lack of available house and engaged in a corrupt and illegal sell-off of the homes. Local residents occupied the homes demanding allocation of the houses based on need not money. The ANC government are now attempting to evict the residents leading to a major local campaign to resist the evictions. The DSM and now WASP have been working with the residents for more than three years in service delivery protests. On Friday WASP organised a protest in Thula ‘Mntwana against the evictions attended by hundreds of activists. At the same time in another part of Orange Farm many miles away rioting and looting of foreign owned shops broke out. During the initial stages of the rioting a shop owner shot two rioters he claimed were trying to rob his shop – this led to widespread looting of foreign owned businesses. Many owners of these businesses were reputed to have bought some of the RDP houses in Orange Farm which fuelled the xenophobic attacks. Disgracefully the ANC, while hypocritically condemning the attacks, blamed the protest organised by WASP and the local activists for instigating the riots and the xenophobic attacks that took place. Neither during Friday’s protest, nor at any point in the course of this struggle, has there been a single incident of xenophobia as a result of the actions of WASP or the local residents campaign committee.

Fighting xenophobia, racism and all forms of divisions within the working class is one of the key tasks of WASP. They are combating it actively within the working class, through political education and in action at every community protest in which they participate. The protests in Thula ‘Mntwana are part of a drive towards a national campaign for service delivery initiated by WASP. The campaign platform makes it compulsory for all communities seeking to join not only to renounce xenophobia, but to also fight it. The approach in Thula ‘Mntwana has been no different. WASP insisted on the community desisting from any action which is, or may be construed as, xenophobic. WASP’s struggle against xenophobia is particularly important as xenophobic sentiments are common in desperate and extremely poor communities. The government are now threatening to suppress the service delivery protests with the clear implication that they intend to act like the did in Fricksburg and the Elias Motsoaledi community in Soweto where activists were shot and killed by the state forces. The united community struggle has now expanded to include several Gauteng communities such as Freedom Park, Elias Motsoaledi, Kliptown and Khutsong. The ANC are attempting to whip up tribalism and sectarianism in these communities out of fear of the growing united community struggle across the townships and activists are now wary of the likelihood of the ANC attempting to crush these campaigns by drowning them in blood just like at Marikana last year.

Over the past two days public pressure has forced the national media in South Africa to row back on the claims that WASP instigated the xenophobic rioting in Orange Farm. There has been widespread reporting of statements issued by WASP spokesperson Mametlwe Sebei condemning the xenophobic rioting and placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of the neo-liberal policies and corruption of the ANC. Many papers and radio stations have issued apologies for implicating WASP in the rioting.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Three chrome mines belonging to Glencore Xstrata were at a standstill after up to 1,500 workers embarked on an illegal strike this week. The dispute at the mines near Steelpoort, northeast of Johannesburg in the Limpopo province, adds to long-running friction in the mining industry that has caused production to slow, raised concerns about Africa's largest economy and sent the rand to new four-year lows. The strike started on Tuesday and operations at all three mines were shut down. " 200 employees were sacked at Helena mine after they failed to return to work after three ultimatums. Final ultimatums were yet to be issued to strikers at its Magareng and Thorncliffe mines. The miners stopped work in solidarity with an individual who was assaulted by a shift supervisor.

42,000 Clerical workers in the Police Service staged a one day strike and protested in Mary Fitzgerald Square in Johannesburg on Thursday. A similar protest was held in Cape Town. In Bloemfontein, the protesters disrupted traffic as they marched in the CBD and in Limpopo several hundred strikers marched in Polokwane. Protestors held up black and red posters stating “Away with apartheid salary structures”, and “We demand equal pay for work of equal value”. Protestors warned Zuma that he would lose votes in next year’s election if he didn’t meet the workers demands. 42,000 workers, members of POPCRU, are threatening further strike action unless Police commissioner, Riah Phiyega, implements agreed wage rates.

Details of the concessions win by workers who took part in an illegal strike at the Lanxess Chrome mine in Rustenburg last week have emerged. Workers were protesting at the failure to pay a R3500 bonus. In order to settle the strike the company agreed to a once off payment of R7000 and a guaranteed 2% wage increase for meeting monthly productivity targets.

Hilariously, NUM spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka issued a statement yesterday claiming “We’re not too close to the companies,”. This occurred after it was outlined that Kgalema Motlanthe, South Africa’s deputy president, served as NUM general secretary, Gwede Mantashe, the secretary general of the ANC, also served as NUM general secretary, James Motlatsi, the first NUM president, was AngloGold Ashanti’s deputy chairman, while Cyril Ramaphosa, who co-founded the NUM in 1982 with Motlatsi is now the deputy president of the ANC and the richest black South African and an investment company he controls also owns a stake in Lonmin’s mines. The ANC have continued their attacks on the AMCU and the independent workers committees claiming today that their actions were an attack on “freedom of association, assembly and speech.”

Widespread protests have broken out over e-tolling of major roadways in Cape Twon and Gauteng. Ongoing rumblings against e-tolling have spilled over and COSATU is now threatening major protests and strike action in two weeks if plans for e-tolling aren’t scrapped.

In the aftermath of the rioting in Orange Farm last week, several service delivery protests have resulting in rioting and looting this week. The ANC and the police have been condemning the rioting as xenophobic and promising to suppress the riots and arrest the community leaders organising the protests. On Wednesday police arrested three community leaders in Greenfields and Vastrap in Port Elizabeth and charged them with killing two people in what was claimed to be a xenophobic attack. After the arrests, residents blockaded roads with rocks, poles, bushes, bricks, and burning tyres. Police used rubber bullets and stun grenades to disperse the crowd. It later emerged that the two dead men were known criminals who were both South African. Further rioting broke out in Cleary Park and Timothy Valley that did result in both foreign and South African owned shops being attacked. Again the police claimed the attacks were xenophobic.

[Jolly Red Giant]

In a major development in the Marikana massacre controversy - South African prosecutors have provisionally dropped murder charges against 270 miners whose colleagues were shot dead by police. The charges cannot be dismissed formally until the end of the inquiry, but prosecutors said all detained miners would be freed. Local authorities used a controversial apartheid-era law to accuse the miners of provoking police to open fire. The killing of the 34 striking Lonmin miners shocked the nation. State prosecutors charged 270 miners with murder under the "common purpose" doctrine. The rule was used by the white-minority apartheid regime to crack down on its black opponents, and at the time was opposed by the now governing African National Congress. Following demands yesterday from lawyers representing the accused miners, Zuma refused to reverse the decision. Zuma had said in a statement that he would not intervene in the case. Hours later, acting national director of prosecutions Nomgcobo Jiba held a news conference and announced the charges would be scrapped. "Final charges will only be made once all investigations have been completed," she said. "The murder charges against the current 270 suspects will be formally withdrawn provisionally in court."

This decision is clearly a political decision by the triumvirate of ANC/SACP/COSATU out of the growing revulsion of the antics of the ANC and SACP over the massacre of the Marikana miners. While the dropping of charges is welcome, no one should be under any illusion that this represents a change in ANC policy. The release of the miners was brought about not by a change of heart by the ANC/SACP but because of the mounting public pressure as a result of the exposure of the SA police in Marikana Inquiry and the murder of 34 miners at Marikana last year.

[Jolly Red Giant]

The ANC and the SACP plan on suppressing strike action by workers in the mining sector. Speaking in Pretoria on Thursday Jacob Zuma was emphatic that all future strikes needed to be undertaken within what he described as South Africa’s "excellent" legal framework and the Constitution declaring a zero tolerance for wildcat strikes. A total of more than 17million hours were lost due to wildcat strikes in the past year. He went on “Everything we do must be designed to strengthen and stabilise the sector, and ensure that it serves all stakeholders - the investors and owners, workers, government and the broader society,” The ANC and SACP are intent on pursuing the development of proposals for special economic zones that would encourage companies to build new factories in the country by allowing them more leeway to hire and fire workers than in the rest of the country. The ‘baas boy’ NUM welcomed Zuma declaration of zero tolerance towards wildcat strikes. NUM spokesman Lesiba Seshoka declared “That normality must be brought by parties' adherence to the rules of collective bargaining, mutual respect and non-violent means of engagement,” South Africa’s economy has tanked in recent months with rising inflation and almost stagnant growth. The value of the Rand slumped in the aftermath of Zuma’s speech. The Rand has fallen in value by 15% during the month of May

In a belated report – a five week long strike by almost 2,000 workers (members of the FAWU) at Rainbow Chicken in Zinniaville in Rustenburg. The strike has seen many violent incidents including the petrol bombing of a bus load of scabs three weeks ago. There have been regular confrontations between the strikers and the police protecting the scabs. Workers are demanding increases of R700 per month (about €53).

Police administrative staff staged another major walkout on Friday. Hollywood actor Danny Glover, who famously played a police officer in the Lethal Weapon series of films, made a guest appearance at a Popcru march in Johannesburg. "I'm here on behalf of all the workers in Mississippi," he said. Glover is part of a delegation from the United Automobile Workers Association of America. "We are all supporting each other, we must stand together. Amandla," said Glover. According to the National Union of Metalworkers of SA, the US union had embarked on "a campaign to unmask the exploitation of Nissan workers in Mississippi". Glover had met with Zuma on Wednesday who took advantage of the meeting for a photo op. He could not have been happy to see Glover appear on the platform of the protest two days later. The ANC and SACP have threatened to sack all police admin staff of they follow through on the threat of a nationwide strike on Monday.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/Feeds/2013/05/30/1028472_848851.jpg/ALTERNATES/crop_630x400/1028472_848851.jpg

Glover addressing protest in Johannesburg

[Jolly Red Giant]

What’s happening at Lonmin?

Today’s update is an outline of developments at the Lonmin Platinum mine in Marikana near Rustenburg following the death of an NUM shop-steward over the weekend in an attack on the NUM offices at the Lonmin Wonderkop mine.

Approximately 37,000 workers work at the Lonmin platinum operation in Marikana near Rustenburg in a series of different mining shafts located around the Marikana settlement. Some of the mineworkers live in mining hostels but many others live in massive unofficial shack settlements in Nkaneng and Wonderkop.

http://www.afp.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/photo_1352335209014-1-0.jpg

As part of the labour relations process at Lonmin, the mining company provide the NUM with several offices and also pay for full-time shop-stewards (5 senior shop stewards and 20 other shop stewards). The NUM offices at Lonmin are hugely important not just for the NUM. The offices also double as the local Marikana offices for the ANC and the local offices of the South African Communist Party. The offices are of particular strategic importance to the ANC and the SACP because they represent a direct link between the economic hubs of South Africa and the rural areas in Eastern Cape and Kwazulu- Natal, where mine workers are generally recruited. All of the NUM shop stewards at Lonmin are reputed to be members of the SACP. The ANC and SACP reportedly use their connections through the Lonmin NUM offices to bolster their support base in Eastern Cape and Kwazulu- Natal through promising jobs in the mines.

The NUM nationally and at Lonmin has become a byword for corruption within the mining industry and within COSATU. Former General Secretary, Cyril Ramaphosa, is now one of the wealthiest men in South Africa and has extensive share-ownership in many mining companies including Lonmin. The position of general secretary of NUM is reported to be worth R1.4 million per annum, including perks. His deputy earns almost as much. Both are members of the SACP. The Lonmin senior shop stewards receive R14,000 per month on top of their normal salaries from Lonmin as NUM representatives. In addition they received a company petrol card, company cell phone and a company vehicle. It is also claimed that Lonmin paid for new houses for the shop stewards and bosberaads - regular foreign holidays / company get-togethers - with Lonmin executives. When shop-stewards were removed by the NUM members they were usually employed in managerial positions within the company that allowed them to retain their income and lifestyle.

Constant political battles for control of the trade union’s investment arm are also a common feature within COSATU. Currently the NUM and SACP are leading a campaign to remove COSATU General Secretary Vavi in an effort to gain control of the multi-million Rand investment wing of COSATU, Kopano Ke Matla Investment Company (Pty) Ltd. To demonstrate the conflict facing COSATU, the union federation is currently engaged in a campaign to prevent e-tolling on a motorway in Cape Town. At the same time Kopano Ke Matla has benefited to the tune of R24million from the implementation of e-tolling.

NUM president Senzeni Zokwana (who is paid by Anglo Gold Ashanti – at a reputed R1.5million and is also National Chairperson of the SACP) defends this practice “I don’t think there is a conflict. The conflict would arise as soon as it overrides the organisation issues. The agreement is to ensure leaders are available at 24 hours to be available. The moment you are released on secondment you do not report to the employer but you report to the union, you are not under the control of the employer…There is nothing wrong; what is wrong is when the seconded individual forgets the instance of his secondment. That judgement call is made by the members (at the three-yearly elections) when they decide if you are serving the interest of business or their interests.”

Turf wars are common within the mining industry and within the NUM between individuals jockeying to get into the shop-stewards positions and their supporters. Nepotism is rampant with shop-stewards putting their supporters into supervisory positions on mining shifts, arranging jobs for family members etc. over the years violence has become part and parcel of these turf wars. Occasionally, genuine shop-stewards emerge to challenge the prevailing corrupt norm.

Last month Steve Khululekile was assassinated at a tavern in Marikana. He was the former NUM chairperson of Lonmin’s Karee branch. He was opposed to corruption in the union and was fired for his efforts. This led to an unprotected strike in 2011 and the dismissal of 9,000 workers at the Karee mine. Most were eventually re-employed but on their return to work they deserted the NUM and joined AMCU en masse. Steve, while attempting to get his job back through the CCMA process, was offered a job as AMCU organiser six months later. His murder could have been revenge against the man who was pivotal to AMCU becoming the majority union at Lonmin. As a result, numerous union officials have lost their cushy jobs and generous perks. It’s a weakness for the NUM as these former officials are seething with anger about having to go back underground on paltry wage levels. For those looking for scapegoats for their present personal and political woes, it’s easy to see why Steve might have been assassinated. That same Saturday that he was killed, Bele Thokalile Dlunga, another strike leader, claimed that assailants were waiting for him to return home.

There is now a universal hatred for the NUM (and by extension the ANC and SACP) in Marikana. Everyone (literally) living and working in the Marikana township – including people who don’t work at Lonmin or were not involved in the strike last August – blame the NUM for all the violence that has occurred in Marikana over the past year.
Murder at Wonderkop 11th August 2012

It is important to recount the events in Marikana the week before the Marikana massacre to get an understanding of why the NUM are so hated. This is part of a report from an investigation by Jared Sacks, a journalist who spent a week in Marikana after the massacre investigating events.

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2012-10-12-marikana-prequel-num-and-the-murders-that-started-it-all/#.Ua3muNgdzs0



On Wednesday 8 August, some rock drill operators (RDOs) from various Lonmin mines had a mass meeting demanding a significant salary increase. The NUM leaders present categorically refused to support the strike, despite the union’s stated mission to promote and represent the interests of its members. On the following day (Women’s Day – a holiday for the workers), thousands of RDOs from all Lonmin mines met at the Lonmin-owned football stadium, adjacent to the settlement, where they agreed to approach Lonmin management directly, as NUM was refusing to represent them.

According to Xolani (not his real name for safety reasons)one active striker from Lonmin’s Karee mine, RDOs “came together as workers, not as a union.” As the large majority of the workers at the assembly were NUM members, the AMCU was unrepresented at this meeting.

On the morning of Friday the 10th, workers assembled and marched to the offices of Lonmin management. David, a Lonmin mine geologist, (who was returning from work and was not then part of the strike), decided to join the striking RDOs to see what was going on. David told me that management refused to speak to the workers, who were assembled peacefully, and told them to go back to the NUM leadership.

Xolani and a few other participants in the march corroborated this. He explained that security had tried to stop the march and that after a long wait, the general manager of the mine came out and then went back in to fetch a NUM leader. After waiting for almost an hour, the NUM leader came out and reprimanded the workers, saying they would not get anything without going through the union.

As a result of Lonmin and NUM’s refusal to meet with the workers, more than 3,000 RDOs and other miners decided to go on strike and refused to clock in that evening. This was a wildcat strike organised directly by workers, without any union representation.

11 August: March on NUM
At approximately 07:00 on Saturday, workers, still primarily RDOs, decided to go to the main offices of NUM in Wonderkop and present union leadership with a memorandum. It is important to note that the NUM offices are also the offices of the ANC and SACP in Wonderkop. They are manned by the top five NUM branch leaders from all the Lonmin mines in Marikana. These leaders are senior to shop-stewards and are elected to their position by workers for a period of three years. Interestingly, David explained to me that they get their normal worker’s salary plus a huge bonus of R14,000 per month from Lonmin. They are therefore accountable to management. Both the NUM leaders and Lonmin are “happy with this arrangement”.

As strikers were by and large NUM members, they were naturally angry that their own union refused to listen to them. The memorandum demanded that NUM represent them in their call for a R12,500 minimum wage for all miners. NUM’s stated raison d’être is, after all, to be a democratic organisation that represents its members.
Julius, an RDO from Lesotho employed at Lonmin since 2008, explained that, as a NUM member, he was hoping the memorandum would convince union leaders of the significance of their wage demands.

Only a handful of AMCU members were present during that march, as many workers from the Karee mine, where AMCU already had a membership presence, was far away and not yet participating in significant numbers in the strike. Xolani, one of the few AMCU members present that day, said this protest was really a case of NUM members rebelling against their own leadership, not a case of inter-union rivalry.

The first murders, ‘a different account’
Once striking RDOs were about 100-150 metres away from the NUM office, eyewitnesses, both participants in the march and informal traders in and around a nearby taxi rank, reported without exception that “top five” NUM leaders and other shop stewards, between 15 and 20 in all, came out of the office and began shooting at the protesting strikers somewhere in the vicinity of the Wonderkop taxi rank.

Some strikers I interviewed claimed the NUM leaders first threw rocks at them before the shooting started. Others said they were attacked from two different angles of the taxi rank. There is also a discrepancy as to just how many guns were in the possession of the leadership that came out of the NUM office (reports range from between five and 15 firearms).

Despite those discrepancies, the strikers and other witnesses – without exception – claim NUM personnel shot at the protesters without warning or provocation. The miners were clearly ambushed by their union representatives. From that point on, the miners marching towards the NUM office, primarily NUM members, ran in many directions: back along the road in which they had come, through the nearby bond houses and through Lonmin-owned hostel properties. They later re-assembled at Lonmin’s football stadium, deciding there for the sake of safety to move to the nearby koppie, a small hilltop uniquely placed on public land between Wonderkop, Marikana and the various Lonmin mines. Protesters seem to have made no attempt to defend themselves, and there seem to have been no further clashes for the rest of the day.

John, a non-striking Lonmin worker, saw two bodies of strikers not far from the NUM office as he returned home from work. One was lying dead by the bus stop in the taxi rank, the other was just outside the workers’ hostel. The range of people I interviewed corroborated the location of the two dead bodies, but it was extremely difficult to confirm the names of the dead strikers as neither Lonmin nor the police have confirmed that any deaths occurred on the 11th. Neither have they released any substantive information about what happened on that day.

However, one person I interviewed provided me with the following new names not released by the Independent Police Investigative Directorate: S. Gwadidi from the Roeland Shaft and Tobias Tshivilika from New Mine Shaft. Both were reportedly RDOs and also NUM members.

In the aftermath of the assassination of Steve Khululekile, 35,000 workers at Lonmin engaged in a two day wildcat strike demanding the closure of the NUM/ANC/SACP offices. In reaction share prices in Lonmin nosedived. The workers clearly blamed the NUM for the assassination of the AMCU organiser. As a result of the strike Lonmin management agreed to accelerate the closure of the NUM offices. In response the NUM went to court and were granted an injunction to keep the NUM offices open until 20th July. Lonmin management are now clearly worried that the ongoing conflict is affecting their commercial interests and have clearly decided to dump the NUM in the hope that they can buy off the AMCU to replace the NUM as a ‘baas boy’ union.

In recent days Lonmin have suspended eight full-time NUM shop-stewards for fiddling the stop orders for union dues and diverting money to the NUM coffers from AMCU members. This was done in an effort to bolster NUM numbers in the Lonmin mine in the hope of keeping their perks from Lonmin. The AMCU currently have approximately 31,000-34,000 of the 37,000 workforce with the remainder divided between the NUM, Solidarity (a Christian trade union) and UASA.

It is with this background that the latest attacks in Marikana occurred. Over the weekend two NUM shop-stewards were shot in an attack on the NUM offices on Wonderkop, one died and the second is critically injured. The NUM have clearly lost the battle for the hearts and mines of the workers at Lonmin (and many other mines in the region) – it is left with the legacy of violence and corruption that has resulted in the death of one of its shop-stewards over the weekend. COSATU is facing a similar battle over the coming period. Riddled with corruption and internal strife it is faced with the prospect of defending the South Africa working class or siding with the corrupt ANC and SACP in their triumvirate rule in South Africa.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Not surprisingly the entire focus of the South African media and the ANC propaganda machine has focussed on the health of Mandela.

However, there is a recent interesting development to report on -

The Bogus Boys

The Bogus Boys are a group of activists who have taken on the establishment line propagated by the South African media and exposed many of the lies they report. The Bogus Boys reproduce SA newspaper posters advertising daily editions of newspapers but change the headlines to attack the ANC and the elites.

The agitiational message of the Bogus Boys is 'not to believe everything you read in the newspapers'.

Last week the Bogus Boys targeted the Star newspaper because the paper was "under threat from Sekunjalo", the consortium buying Independent Newspapers' South African operations. It is claimed that Sekunjalo's R2billion bid for the Star is being bankrolled by the ANC.

Among the recent 'headline' posters produced by the Bogus Boys were large number of posters that appeared in Parkhurst with the headline "ANC Murdered Marikana Miners" and this one -

http://www.iol.co.za/polopoly_fs/bogus-posters-2-1.1526038!/image/2161199014.jpg_gen/derivatives/box_300/2161199014.jpg

'Voetsek Zuma' is Afrikaans for 'Get Lost Zuma'

[Jolly Red Giant]

Obituary for comrade Kemelo Ernest Mokgalagadi

http://www.socialistworld.net/img/20130610Ernest1.jpg

by Mametlwe Sebei
It is with sadness and a sense of great loss that we mourn the untimely death of Comrade Kemelo Ernest Mokgalagadi, the branch secretary of the Democratic Socialist Movement at Kroondal, Rustenburg. Comrade Ernest, as he was simply and affectionately called by friends and comrades, passed away at Job Shimankane Tabane hospital in Rustenburg after a short illness and operation on the 2nd June 2013. His death has certainly robbed the mineworkers and the struggle for socialism of a tireless organiser and uncompromising fighter in Rustenburg, the main theatre of working class resistance today in South Africa. We send our condolences to his family and friends and pledge to continue the march to the emancipation of the working class and the socialist transformation of society that he dedicated his life to.

Comrade Ernest was the leader of the 4 500 Murray and Roberts workers who had been on strike and had been dismissed by the company for participating in an unprotected strike in 2009. The Murray and Roberts strike was undoubtedly the first turning point in process of the disintegration of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM)--the beginning of the end to its unchallenged domination in the platinum mining industry of Rustenburg.

For the first time, the NUM was publicly and openly challenged by their own members for the criminal and treacherous role they played. Behind the backs of the workers, the NUM leaders had reached an agreement with the Murray and Roberts’s management, accepting an offer of an 8% wage increase, ignoring the mandate for the modest demand of 10, 5%.and disregarding the overwhelming opposition of the workers to the offer. This effectively terminated a protected strike rendering it illegal, clearing the way for the bosses to call upon the stat e and private mine security to brutally crush the strike.

Comrade Ernest was elected onto the strike committee which led the strike that ensued in spite of the bitter opposition from the NUM leadership. The strike became one of the first in the series of the bloody battles waged against workers by the mine bosses and the government, that culminated, ultimately, in the Marikana massacre of 16 August, 2012.

The Murray and Roberts Workers Committee, in which Comrade Ernest played a central role, became the basis for the political intervention of the DSM amongst the mineworkers in Rustenburg and beyond. It was this committee which, together with the Samancor and Anglo-Platinum strike committees, became the founding components of the Rustenburg Joint Strike Committee which subsequently fanned out beyond Rustenburg, developing into the National Strike Committee that played such a pivotal role in the co-ordination of the mineworkers’ strikes last year. The founding meeting of the joint Rustenburg-wide committee, which was attended by more than 50 delegates at Ikemeleng Primary School in Kroondal, was testimony to the tireless work and organising efforts of Comrade Ernest.

At the time of his death, Comrade Ernest was a key organiser for the Democratic Socialist Movement in Rustenburg and a member of the re-named National Workers Committee of the mineworkers. In these capacities, he was also the main organiser of the Workers and Socialist Party (WASP) in Rustenburg. Having worked with him intimately, I can attest that what set him apart in these roles was the appreciation of the fact that the struggles of the mineworkers can no longer be limited to the daily and immediate demands of the workers, but has to be linked to the broader, international working class struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the socialist transformation of society.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Striking workers at the Xstrata Chrome mines in Steelport in Limpopo have requested the assistance of the Workers and Socialist Party in their struggle. 1, 000 chrome miners have been on strike for over two weeks and the mine owners sacked the workers on Monday. WASP will attend a mass meeting of the striking workers on Thursday. The request by the striking workers to WASP has attracted national media attention in South Africa.

The AMCU has served strike notice on the Lonmin mine at Marikana after talks on union recognition broke down on Tuesday. Lonmin has gone to court to get the strike declared illegal and has threatened to sack the workers. The Rand fell on news that strike notice had been served.

The ANC/ SACP government are attempting to introduce Thatcherite type trade union laws in an effort to stem the militancy of South African workers. The triumvirate has come under increasing pressure from workers to abandon the measure while the opposition Democratic Alliance is demanding that the ANC hold firm.

Striking sanitary workers in Cape Town continue their dispute. Mass arrests occurred on Tuesday when over 200 striking workers and local residents were arrested as they engaged in another protest as part of the ‘poo wars’. In an effort to break the strike Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille supervised scabs cleaning toilets in two informal settlements. The team supervised by de Lille had to be accompanied by a major detachment of police. In protest at the failure of the government to settle the strike residents of Barcelona and Kanana settlements dumped the container toilets on the motorway. The residents in the settlements have been involved in ongoing service delivery protests. The residents are demanding proper sanitation rather than the current system of portaloos.

Over 1,000 taxi drivers are threatening a two day strike in Durban at the weekend demanding Dept of Labour intervention in a dispute with the taxi owners. Workers are demanding that the Dept. of Labour should enforce the labour laws and drivers’ right to permanent employment. On MayDay the taxi drivers union SATWO marched to the Durban city hall to deliver a memorandum to the SA National Taxi Council (Santaco) and labour and transport departments. The taxi owners are threatening to ‘deal’ with the drivers if they strike and their spokesman indicated the potential for violent confrontation if the strike goes ahead.

A strike is looming at the Keaton Energy Vaalkrantz anthracite colliery, in KwaZulu-Natal after pay talks collapsed on Tuesday. Workers are demanding a 60% pay rise.

Workers at two construction sites for power stations have won major concessions in talks after a series of strikes over the past two months. Along with a once off payment of approx R8,000 the company and contractors agreed to –
• a minimum wage for all hourly paid contractor employees;
• standardised pay rates within each company, across companies and within the same industries. The contractors must ensure that pay scales are applied consistently;
• a new central wage bureau to aid standardisation and;
• parties to appoint a task team to address skills development and training needs for employees and employers.


The SACP held a PEC meeting in Gauteng this week and issued a statement afterwards that included the following gem:

PEC welcomed the message by the collective leadership of our country led by President Jacob Zuma that our country compared to many in the world is doing very well. This we say fully aware that there are isolated cases that continue to pose a challenge to our country but are receiving attention.

Mid-year exams which were supposed to have started in Limpopo schools this week had to be rescheduled at some of the schools. The schools did not have "resources to print exam papers,".

For the second time this week disgruntled construction workers blocked uMngeni Road and the M19 in Durban with burning rubble. Protesters began placing barricades on the road at 4am on Wednesday By 6am metro police were attempting to clear the road for traffic to run smoothly, and a water truck was used to douse the fires. Workers employed by Rumdel Cape/EXR Joint Venture downed tools four weeks ago demanding a R12 000 project bonus, and every day these workers have been protesting at the construction site.

In the latest developments at the Marikana inquiry - North West deputy police chief Maj-Gen William Mpembe was forced to admit that video footage of the deaths of two police officers in the lead up to the Marikana massacre ‘had gaps’. The police claimed that the two policemen were killed in an unprovoked attack. However, after admitting that the video footage didn’t show events prior to the killing of the police, Mpembe was forced to acknowledge that the police indiscriminately fired teargas canisters at point blank range into a crowd of 200 striking workers who were walking to the Kopie to attend a meeting. It was the assault by police that provoked a reaction by the striking workers. The miners claimed that the police were attempting to use the cover of teargas to send in snatch squads to kidnap strike leaders.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Thousands of workers are engaged in a wildcat sit-in strike at the Amplats mine in Rustenburg over the sacking of 5 trade union organisers by the mining company. The company claimed that the organisers were submitting fraudulent membership forms to inflate union membership figures for the AMCU – however, the workers claim that none of the sacked workers have any responsibility for submitting union membership forms to the company.

Over 1000 taxi drivers have staged a strike in Durban demanding normalisation of their employment status. The taxi drivers affiliated to the South African Taxi Workers’ Organisation (Satwo) want ”to be hired permanently. They want a time for clocking in and knocking off,”

ANC chairman in North West Supra Mahumapelo has admitted that the ANC in Marikana is falling asunder. Mahumapelo admitted that ANC meetings regularly have to be abandoned because no one turns up to them. The ANC chief claims that ANC members are afraid of being attacked and the ANC have not been conducting any house-to-house canvassing for next year’s election because of the open 9and often violent) hostility to the ANC in the informal settlements around Marikana. Mahumapelo says the danger was aggravated by the lack of a police presence in the area. "There has been a general negative attitude towards the police since the shooting last year," he says. The ANC has urged its members in Marikana and surrounding mine areas to work with the police "to identify and isolate the thugs responsible for violence".

About 100 health workers picketed at Durban's Addington Hospital on Friday about the fact that the hospital's two radio therapy machines were left idle for five months. Tecmed, the company which installed the two Varian Rapid Arc Linear Accelerators and is responsible for maintaining them, stopped servicing the machines in January. This, after the department stopped paying the maintenance contract nine months earlier. The department has claimed that Tecmed fraudulently obtained the tender for the two machines. In Friday's memorandum, the Health and Other Service Personnel Trade Union (Hospersa) accused the department of denying cancer patients treatment, “causing some of them to move from being treatable to terminal”. The union said the fact that patients from Addington had been placed on waiting lists at Inkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital did not “translate into treatment”. Several of the protesters had banners and placards. One of them read: “Cancer Kills, so does our government”, and another:

Hundreds of informal settlement residents blocked one of Durban's busiest roads for several hours on Thursday in demand of better services. Burning tyres, trees, mattresses and rubbish littered a three kilometre stretch of Alpine Road, in Durban, which links the suburb of Overport with the Springfield industrial area. The squatter camp is believed to have between 1000 and 2000 residents. “We are living in tins. They (eThekwini metro) gave us these as temporary (accommodation), but how long must we wait?” asked the protestors. Residents were demanding land, housing, electricity, water, and speed humps in Alpine Road. Protesters, carrying bottles and vuvuzelas, sang, danced, and chanted on a hill overlooking Alpine Road. They claimed they were promised housing in 2007 by a former eThekwini mayor, and that they had been forgotten. The police had to use teargas at various stages in attempts to disperse the group. One protestor suffered a heart attack after the police fired tear gas canisters at the protestors.

It was disgraceful that pupils from South Peninsula High in Diep River protested outside the Western Cape High Court instead of learning in their classrooms, Western Cape Education MEC Donald Grant has said. Dressed in their school uniforms, 61 members of the school’s student representative council (SRC) protested against school closures on Tuesday. The Western Cape High Court was hearing a review of Grant’s decision to close 20 of the 27 schools he had initially identified for possible closure last year. Brian Isaacs, principal of South Peninsula High, said the school had a long history of activism. “We have a history at our school where students are encouraged to voice their disapproval. The SRC decided they wanted to be there because they wanted to show their support.” He said it was important that the Western Cape Education Department saw a school which produced excellent results could also protest against department decisions. South Peninsula had achieved a 99 percent matric pass rate last year. “We are serious about education and we are not going to let anyone tell us we can’t be there.” Isaacs said he did not feel it was necessary to ask the department for permission. “The department created trauma in our society. They were the ones responsible for students being there. The department created this war.”

[Jolly Red Giant]

It has been some time since the previous update – there was a relative lull in strike and protest action for a couple of week (possibly in part due to the attention give to the deteriorating health of Mandela. However, negotiations for sector wide pay bargaining have now started and this is reflected in new movements of the South African working class. Miners are demanding a pay increase to R12,500 per month (in many cases this is a doubling of existing wages).

On Monday Anglo American Platinum mines at Thembelani and Khomanan were hit by wildcat strikes involving 5,600 mineworkers. The workers were demanding the company rehire 19 shop stewards dismissed last week for orchestrating an illegal sit in at Thembelani. The strike lasted two days until all the shop stewards were reinstated.

Johannesburg has been hit by a wave of strikes by Municipal workers (members of SALGA and SAMWU) after the collapse of pay talks. Strikes at Pikitup and Metrobus were declared illegal last week and have seen violence break out in the past few days. Police were called to the Norwood depot where striking workers were allegedly throwing stones at refuse removal vehicles driven by scabs leaving the premises. Blockades have also taken place at other depots. The Pikitup spokesperson confirmed that the company had hired a private security firm to try and break the strike. The Metrobus strike is being predicted to spread into a nationwide strike over the next few days. Metrobus workers are demanding the sacking of the Managing Director who they accuse of being involved in corruption and nepotism.

The likely collapse of pay talks in the Western Cape has led COSATU to threaten widespread strike action in the province in the coming days. Workers are demanding minimum wages of R4500 per month and increases above 10%. There is also ongoing protests over electricity price hikes by energy supplier Eskom with threatened province wide strike action if the price rises aren’t recinded.

Workers at South African Airways are planning to strike from Thursday after the collapse of pay talks. SATAWU and UASA represent most of the ground and cabin crews and are demanding a 7.5% pay increase.

More than 3,000 home care workers protested in Durban on Friday as part of their campaign for a 200% pay increase. 13,000 home-care workers employed by the Kwa-Zulu Natal Department of Health are threatening strike action. Care workers are paid as little as R1,500 per month and many have been subjected to threats and violence, including rape and murder. The workers also want to be supplied with surgical masks and gloves for attending to and bathing patients.

DeBeers agreed to a 9% pay increase when mineworkers threatened strike action after the collapse of pay talks last week.


Two interesting articles related to independent action by workers forming their own strike committees outside the official union structures and corruption within the trade union movement.


http://libcom.org/news/self-organised-strikes-mines-farms-south-africa-15112012

[Sentinel]

Topic split - the discussion on the situation of Liv Shange can be found in a new thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/cwi-member-faces-t181901/index.html).

[Jolly Red Giant]

134 mineworkers at JCI Consmurch Mine in Gravelotte, Limpopo are staging an underground sit-in demanding dividend payments for shares the miners purchased in 2009. 200 other miners are participating in the strike on the surface. Police from the Public Order Policing Unit have been deployed to the area. The wildcat strike halted all production at the mine.

South Africa’s Legal Aid Board are refusing to grant funding to provide for the legal defence team for the mineworkers wounded during the Marikana Massacre at the Farlam Commission. Lukas van der Merwe told a High court hearing that funding for legal aid for the wounded miners “is not a constitutional imperative”. He said the Legal Aid Board could give funds only where substantial injustice would result if it did not, as in criminal cases. However, a commission did not have a final binding effect. It had to make recommendations, but could not convict anyone. He said he understood that the findings of a commission could prejudice people. Astonishingly Van Der Merwe claimed “But a commission cannot result to substantial injustice on an individual…This could happen only in court”. Hundreds of mineworkers protested outside the court during the proceedings.

The Metrobus strike in Johannesburg has ended after the company agreed to carry out an independent investigation into allegations of corruption by its acting managing director.

The strike by more than 1,000 workers at Pikitup is continuing. Five Pikitup depots have been blockaded by striking workers over the withdrawal by the company of transport for workers to and from work in the early mornings. This is the second large scale strike in two months at the company after a strike in May against plans by the company to implement a biometric access control system.

Aids and HIV positive patients in south Africa are suffering as a result of a shortage of drugs needed to treat their illnesses. Last Friday, more than 50 patients held a sit-in protest at the village clinic in Lusikisiki, Eastern Cape, after being told that the ARV efavirenz was out of stock. Patients and nurses in the Eastern Cape, Gauteng and Mpumalanga continue to report medicine stock-outs at local clinics, including shortages of antiretroviral drugs. This is despite repeated assurances by some provincial health officials that this is not the case. Peggy Dlamini, a patient at Phillip Moyo Clinic in Ekurhuleni, said she had been dismissed from work for being absent every Thursday, trying to get her treatment. “I spent almost three weeks missing a day of work to come and get my treatment, but I was always going home empty-handed and now I have been laid off at work,” said Dlamini. Portia Serote, who works for the Treatment Action Campaign, said depot authorities had told them they lacked space to store drugs. Provincial spokesman Chris Maxon blamed the shortage on “supplier capacity challenges”. HIV doctors are concerned that disruptions to their patients’ ARV treatment could increase cases of drug-resistant HIV, as is the case with tuberculosis. TB medication is also running short in some Tshwane and Eastern Cape clinics, while some clinics don’t have insulin for diabetics, or medicine to treat epilepsy or asthma, according to reports from OurHealth monitors visiting local clinics. Stocks of the tetanus vaccine are also reportedly low countrywide.

In a report into ongoing cases of xenophobia in some of the most deprived townships The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says an estimated 62 foreigners have been killed in South Africa this year between January and May. UNHCR says an estimated 130 incidents of attacks on foreigners have been reported since the beginning of the year. Seventy three people were seriously injured and some 5,000 others displaced. Last year, 238 incidents were reported – 120 people were killed and 7,500 others displaced.

The leader of the Cato Manor shack dwellers was shot dead last week. Nkululeko Gwala led several violent protests against the eThekwini Municipality’s allocation of low-cost houses, claiming legitimate shack dwellers were being passed over. The 700-strong mob he led damaged infrastructure and challenged others in low-cost houses in Cato Manor, demanding they show proof that they were the rightful owners of their homes. Last Wednesday, after the community held a meeting on the unrest with Durban mayor James Nxumalo and the head of the ANC in eThekwini, Sibongiseni Dhlomo, Gwala was shot dead near his shack at about 10.30pm. Abahlali Basemjondolo secretary Bandile Mdlalose said ANC leaders had told a meeting held in Cato Crest last week that Gwala should leave the area because he had “become a menace”. She said “Gwala was fighting against housing being allocated in a corrupt way,” she said. Mdlalose continued “We informed the mayor that some people were getting more than one house each, but the mayor refused to listen to us,” Gwala is the fourth housing activist to be murdered in Durban in the past six months. Three of those killed were activists in the Abahlali Basemjondolo shackdwellers movement (known as the ‘red shirts’). The ‘red shirts’ have been subjected to ongoing police repression and paramilitary violence since its formation in 2005.

Sanitation protests in Cape Town continued on Monday when protestors dumped faeces at Cape Town International Airport. Flights were delayed for 10 hours as a result of the protest. Seven protestors who were arrested have been denied bail. Dozens of protestors packed the courtroom and jeered and heckled as the judge ordered the protestors be returned to jail.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Disabled workers working in the Sheltered Employment Sector in textiles and furniture manufacturing have won a pay increase package that amounts to a total 21% increase. The settlement covers a wage increase, improvements in employer retirement fund contribution levels, the introduction of a housing allowance and trade union organisational rights advances. The details include a 6% wage increase, a 1% increase in employer contributions towards the provident fund, a housing allowance of R300 a month for factory workers and the implementation of medical aid employer contribution for factory workers.

Workers at the power utility Eskom’s Malta plant staged a one day wildcat strike following the rejection of a pay offer of 5.6%. Inflation in South Africa is currently running at 6%.

South Africa’s gold companies have offered a 4% pay increase in wage negotiations. Mine workers are demanding pay increases of between 60%-120%.

Bus drivers at Golden Arrow, Translux and MyCiTi in Cape Town are staging a full-scale strike over demands for 18% pay increase. The companies have offered 8% on drivers wage rates of R23.50 (€1.80) per hour. The strike has caused chaos among commuters in Cape Town.

Lecturers at the South West Gauteng Further Education and Training (FET) College’s Dobsonville campus in Soweto went on a wildcat strike on Monday. The lecturers had chased campus manager Busisiwe Setati out of the college, accusing her of nepotism and failing to provide leadership.

The workers of Jack Snacks Nelspruit who are members of SACCAWU have gone on strike. The strike is as the result of the employer refusing to grant the workers the minimum wage of R3500, 00. The workers have had enough of poverty wages and level of inequalities, which have made them to feel increasingly marginalised and excluded in the society.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Striking workers at the Consolidated Murchison’s Village Main Reef mine in Limpopo have been shafted by the National Union of Mineworkers. A total of 918 members of the NUM went on strike 12 days ago when more than 120 mineworkers occupied the mining shaft in protest at the failure of the company to pay the mine workers dividends on shares they purchased in 2009.

The full might of the company and the state were brought to bear on the striking workers. The courts declared the strike illegal – the company threatened to sack all the workers and the police were called to forcibly end the strike.

The NUM abandoned the striking workers after 10 days declaring that the Motlanthe Accord (called after the ANC Deputy President) must be implemented. The Motlanthe Accord was signed between the ANC government, the mining companies and the NUM in an effort to stifle industrial unrest in the mining sector in the run up to sector-wide pay talks due to start on Thursday.

Following the ending of the strike the company thanked the ANC, the police and the NUM for bringing the strike to an end – and then the company went on to state that it would consider whether it would implement its planned sacking of workers and to what degree. This is a clear indication that Consolidated Murchison intend to witch hunt the strike organisers in the mine.

Meanwhile ANC officials on Sunday vowed to defend the NUM against its rival union, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), at a mining rally held in Marikana where leaders from the Tripartite Alliance addressed a small rally of political cronies. The ANC's deputy chairperson in the Bonjanala District vowed to defend NUM and accused Amcu of being like a small cockroach that only needs a mild spray to be dealt with.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Talks at the Gold Mining sector pay talks are on the verge of collapse and a strike across the gold mining region is not becoming and inevitably. The mining companies increased their pay offer from 4% to 5% while the unions are demanding between 60%-100% increases.

Over 1,000 workers at the Transhex mine in Northern Cape began strike action last Friday. The strike is currently continuing.

Over 450 workers (members of theThe Food and Allied Workers Union) have begun strike action at Parmalat's plants in South Africa. The FAWU is demanding a 9% wage increase and workers rejected a company offer of 7%.

Workers at Telkom SA have rejected a pay offer from Africa’s largest fixed-line operator, bringing them closer to a strike. Telkom’s wage offer was rejected by 70% of union Solidarity’s 3,000 members at the company, while an early vote among about a fifth of the employees that are members of the South African Communications Union showed 60% rejected the offer.
A number of NGO-employed caregivers in Gauteng have been on strike for two weeks because the provincial health department has not paid their employers. “More than 400 NGOs have petitioned the department to continue their contracts to provide home-based care to thousands of needy people around the province, but have not received any response.” Caregivers, who help mainly terminally ill patients and those with HIV, visit sick people in their homes to bathe them and ensure that they have food and clean bedding.

Violence has erupted at a strike by workers at Eskom’s Medupi power plant in Limpopo. Up to 1,000 workers clashed with police and set fire to cars and equipment during rioting. More than 20 striking workers were injured and 45 arrested when police opened fire with rubber bullets and stun grenades as they attempted to disperse the demonstration, provoking a violent reaction from the striking workers. Strikes averaging 10 days a month have broken out at the plant every month since the beginning of the year. Kitchen staff at the site who supply 21,000 meals every day have also embarked on strike action over the non-payment of bonuses.

Report on the attitude of people in Marikana to the ANC – Julius Malema is planning to launch his new party Economic Freedom Fighters in Marikana on the anniversaryry of the massacre. Malema is attempting to recruit dissident former members of the ANC to the EFF. Malema has a base of support among former members of the ANC Youth League. A number of local ANC councillors resigned in recent times as the hostility ot the ANC continued to increase in Marikana.

I ask one of the workers – an ANC member – how things have changed for the party since August last year, when the Marikana massacre took place.
"It's not safe here in Nkanini," she says. "There has been a change. People don't want to see Zuma T-shirts. People say, 'He killed us; we don't want the ANC.' Before the strike, you could wear your ANC T-shirt in peace.

In Nkanini, workers are prepared to talk politics but only anonymously. "I no longer support the ANC because of what happened on August 16," says a rock driller dressed in a black golf shirt and shorts. "I work here at Lonmin; I was there on the mountain but I ran away."

Generally, workers are still noncommittal about who they will vote for in next year's election.

Asked whether he would vote for the EFF, another worker in the group says: "It could be. We'll have to hear what he says first. But my X is no longer with the ANC and I'm talking about mineworkers and their families in the Eastern Cape."

Although Malema's movement is gaining traction, there is unlikely to be an organic joining of hands between former youth league members and mineworkers, says Devan Pillay, a sociologist and political analyst at the University of the Witwatersrand.

"Some prominent individuals might align with the EFF as it has happened with [the union federation] Nactu in the past. But there are others. Wasp [Workers and Socialist Party] has aligned with miners, Holomisa's party (the United Democratic Movement) is aligned with workers.

Pillay says: "Holomisa doesn't go as far as nationalisation but he does appeal in terms of service delivery, which can improve people's lives."

Whether nationalisation will capture the workers' imagination or not is an open question. "There are some workers with political education but nationalisation in the EFF's sense means the elites taking over. I'm not sure whether a public debate on that issue will appeal to them.

"The issue of land might be more appealing to workers," he says. "The EFF is not from the working class in that sense. They are drawn from the youth and they have no strong footing in the union movement.

"WASP's articulation of nationalisation is more thought through. The EFF says the state must take over, which can be worse than private ownership."

In 2000, African Rainbow Minerals offered residents around the Modikwa platinum mine an 8.5% stake in the on credit, promising to develop schools, hospitals, homes and roads in the hills of Limpopo province. The 80 000 community members still collectively owe about R158-million on their share. When the mine was established, African Rainbow not only promised an ownership stake, it arranged an interest-free loan for the residents to pay for it. Seven communities borrowed R306-million from African Rainbow to purchase their stake. While African Rainbow has paid off its own debt through income from Modikwa and other operations, only about half the residents' debt has been repaid "They promised to develop the village," local resident Prudence Moime said in front of her crumbling home, where a row of bricks serves as a kitchen surface. "Houses were never built. Roads weren't built properly. We're not happy at all." Since 1994 a tiny elite with ties to the ruling ANC benefitted from more than R600-billion in black economic empowerment deals.
Among those is Patrice Motsepe, part-owner of African Rainbow Minerals who is worth over Rand 20Billion. Motsepe is also on the board of Harmony Gold Mining Company. Anglo American sold six gold mine shafts to African Rainbow for more than R73-million, allowing it to pay out of future profits. Motsepe paid off the debt within three years by slashing jobs and wages. African Rainbow also took control of Anglovaal Mining, giving it stakes in iron ore, manganese and chrome mines that saw profits soar along with demand from China for building materials. African Rainbow was one of just six companies benefiting from almost three-quarters of the R28.4-billion worth of assets transferred into black hands in 2003, data released by the trade and industry ministry shows. The others included Cyril Ramaphosa's investment company, Shanduka Group, and Tokyo Sexwale's then-company, Mvelaphanda Resources (Ramaphosa is the former head of the National Union of Mineworkers and leading light in the ANC – Sexwale is former Minister for Human Settlement and Prime Minister of Gauteng, he served a prison sentence with Mandela on Robben Island). A study published by economics professors Daron Acemoglu of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stephen Gelb of the University of Johannesburg and James Robinson of Harvard University in 2007 found 56 senior ANC officials had positions on listed companies' boards.
Almost 14% of South Africa's 53-million people live on less than R12 a day, according to the World Bank. Black citizens on average earn a sixth of what their white counterparts do and 1.9-million households have no income, census data shows. Modkwa resident Kabelo Madilo says "Black economic empowerment is working for politicians and their friends only." Development around Modikwa has been uneven. While some live in large, sturdy homes – Madilo says they are the ones who have links to local leaders or have personal contracts from companies – the majority live in cobbled-together shelters dotted across a moonscape of eroded land. "I'm happy the mine is here, but they don't give us anything," said Doris Madingwane (35), who helps run a kindergarten for 35 preschoolers in the area and accuses the mine of reneging on a pledge to upgrade the two classrooms, which let in the rain. "We're suffering here."

[Gisnook]

why are all these updates not on the DSM website socialistsouthafrica.co.za ?

[Jolly Red Giant]

More than 700 activists attended the regional launch rally of the Workers and Socialist Party in Atok, Limpopo on Wednesday. among those attending were a large contingent from the 2,000 workers who have been on strike at the Xstrata Steelport mine for the past three months and are fighting for their re-instatement. Others present were delegates from the Bokoni Labour Forum which represents the independent mineworkers committees in Bokoni, delegates from mines in Carltonville and mineworkers from other mines in the provience. Delegates from mining unions the AMCU and the GIWUSA as well as delegates from the National Transport Movement spoke at the rally. Representatives from a variety of community and youth campaigns also addressed the rally. The rally was an important step in the development of the WASP and in the resistance to the exploitation and repression of workers and communities in the region from the mining bosses and the triumvirate of the ANC, the SACP and COSATU.

http://workerssocialistparty.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Limpopo1.jpg

http://workerssocialistparty.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Limpopo3.jpg

[Jolly Red Giant]

why are all these updates not on the DSM website socialistsouthafrica.co.za ?
My guess is that they literally do not have time because of all the campaigning work they are currently engaged in. The current class struggle in South Africa is intense and the work of comrades in the DSM is concentrated on building workers and community campaigns against the viscious attacks and repression from the mine bosses and the triumvirate of ANC, SACP and COSATU.

[Jolly Red Giant]

The Anniversary of the Marikana Massacre takes place this week

Some updates

The Marikana Massacre and the Media
The Institute for the Advancement of Journalism has criticised the reporting of the Lonmin strike and the Marikana massacre last August. IAJ director Michael Schmidt said he had never seen a report by a journalist who had gone underground to experience the working conditions that mineworkers go through every day. Jane Duncan, chairwoman of the Highway Africa Chair of Media and the Information Society at Rhodes University stated that the voices of mine workers featured little in media reports on last year's strike-related unrest at Lonmin's Marikana mine in North West, “Most journalists relied on official sources of information, such as spokespersons and from big business,” she said.

The role of the Police
Former Constitutional Court Judge Zac Yacoob said in a report on Monday that the behaviour of South Africa's police force remain largely unchanged since the apartheid era, “Sadly, the police of today do not seem to be better than the police of yesterday,” said Yacoob, in reference to the Marikana tragedy.

Commemorations
Disgraced Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega stated yesterday that various events to commemorate the Marikana tragedy were planned by government, affected communities, mining companies and labour organisations. The fact that the woman responsible for deploying the security forces to Marikana at the time of the massacre last year talks about ‘commemorations’ is going to create a growing anger among the South African working class. It shows how far removed from the lives of working class people Phiyega and her ilk live. Phiyega went on to say that the tragedy affected the police both as individuals as well as an organisation. "I feel the pain that they are experiencing... I am learning to come to terms with it." The woman doesn’t know how to stop shoving her foot into her mouth.

Meanwhile

Stupid statement of the week
At the Annual Labour Law Conference, which ran from July 30 to August 1 at the Sandton Convention Centre, in Johannesburg economist Andrew Levy stated that South Africa needs to tackle the “woeful and complete lack of economic literacy” among its working population, including mineworkers. Levy claimed that “Until workers understand economic reality, they are going to continue making unrealistic wage demands because they believe it’s attainable,”

NEWSFLASH - Mr Levy – the economic reality for millions of workers and their families is poverty, shantytowns, violence, oppression and brutality designed to preserve the profits of the mine owners and the capitalist class in South Africa.

Strike at Walter Sisulu University
Staff on strike at Walter Sisulu University in the Eastern Cape is now in its third week, the trade union representing the workers at the embattled institution has said it is not prepared to settle for less than its demands. The WSU staff members at all campuses in East London, Mthatha, Butterworth and Queenstown are on strike demanding a salary increase of at least 8%. Management said they had no money and could only offer 4.25%. The National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) said it would not accept the offer. “We apologise to students. “The strike will continue until all our demands have been met by the university,” Nehawu provincial chairperson Xolani Malamlela said yesterday.

Service Delivery Protests

Protea South informal settlement in Soweto
Last Thursday morning a major service delivery protest began in Protea South informal settlement in Soweto. By 6am roads were blocked with rubble and burning tyres. Community leader Tshepo Mokhele said residents demanded houses, electricity, water and sanitation, among others. “We’ve been holding meetings with government officials since September 2010 and we have minutes in which we were fed what have now become empty promises. It has come to our knowledge now that Protea South is not part of the city and government’s plans in terms of service delivery,” he said. “Residents decided to take to the streets in order to make their voices heard and demand action from the officials. They are very angry and frustrated.” The protest continued throughout the day and in attempts to disperse the protestors the police opened fire spraying rubber bullets at the protesters from a police Nyala armoured car. Two elderly women were hit in the head and after the protesters came to their aid the Nyala was attacked and pelted with stones as it continued to fire rubber bullets into the crowd. The protests have continued.

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Violence in Fochville
Earlier in the week a service delivery protest in Fochville near Carltonville turned violent. Fifty protesters were arrested as the police opened fire with rubber bullets and water cannon.

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The arrival of the MEC representative sparked a wave of anger among the protesters

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[Jolly Red Giant]

After a lull in strike action due to ongoing pay talks in several sectors of the South African economy the potential for a massive strike wave is now emerging.

Crippling strike action is looming in the gold mining sector after wage talks which resumed at the Chamber of Mines on Tuesday yielded little hope of a breakthrough. It was the second last round of negotiations under Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) mediation and strike action is looking increasingly likely.

Southern African Clothing & Textile Workers' Union (SACTWU) has set itself a target to strike ballot 40 000 clothing workers over a three week period, in regard to unresolved wage negotiations in the clothing industry. The balloting process started on 1 August 2013. As of Tuesday, the ballot for 35 916 workers employed in 339 factories has been concluded. SACTWU expects to reach its 40 000 target by tomorrow. Counting of ballots has commenced.

South Africa's biggest union for manufacturing (National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa - NUMSA) plans to launch an open-ended nationwide strike on Monday in the country's key auto sector in a dispute over pay affecting over 30,000 assembly line workers. NUMSA has revised its initial demand for a 20 percent increase to 14 percent, well above the central bank's projected inflation rate for the year of 5.9 percent. Major carmakers in South Africa, including Toyota, Ford, General Motors and Nissan, were only prepared to offer 6 percent during negotiations to replace a three-year wage deal ending on June 30. Pre-empting the strike move by the NUMSA more than 2,000 workers at BMW's factory in Rossyln outside Pretoria have launched a strike over pay.

The South African coal-mining industry is a major supplier of coal to large developing economies China and India and is now facing all-out strike action. Coal companies have been stockpiling coal in preparation for the strike and coal prices have been climbing on the international markets. Most of South Africa's export grade coal is produced by Anglo American, BHP Billiton and Glencore Xstrata.

The Hotspot Monitor for service delivery protests indicates that there have been 97 major service delivery protests since the beginning of the year. The figures do not include hundreds of minor protests that lasted less than a day. 2012 saw 170 major protests. Protests in Protea South in Soweto have been called off after promises that electricity would be supplied to the shacks in the shantytown. Activists have given the local government three weeks to complete the restoration of electricity otherwise protests will resume. About 1000 residents of the Nonyi informal settlement in Mandeni embarked on a service delivery protest on Monday. Residents threw stones at police, who used rubber bullets and teargas to disperse them.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Emerging strike wave in South Africa

About 30,000 workers in the export-intensive vehicle sector have been on strike since Monday,

4,000 aircraft maintenance technicians have embarked on an all-out strike with South African Airlines. The strike is also affecting other airlines who have maintenance contracts with SAA. Striking workers are blockading the entrance to the technical park.

90,000 construction workers have embarked on a pay strike demanding minimum pay rates. Firms affected by the strikes include Wilson Bayly Holmes Ovcon, Aveng Ltd. and Group Five Ltd. Police and workers clashed at a building project in Johannesburg's financial district of Sandton when striking workers arrived to bring other workers out on strike.

Talks with gold mine owners have collapsed and 120,000 mineworkers have given one week’s strike notice.

Talks in the platinum and coal mines are also deadlocked and strikes are likely when, in all likelihood, they collapse completely.

3,000 municipal workers in Sun City are on strike demanding the re-instatement of shop stewards who were sacked last week. The strike is expected to spread over the coming days.

50,000 textile workers have issued strike notice after the collapse of pay talks.

Tens of thousands of farm workers are threatening strike action after the failure of farmers to implement an agreed pay increase. The ANC government granted large numbers of farmers exemption from paying the increase. Over 15,000 workers have been affected by the decision of the government.

In response to continuing service delivery protests in Cape Town police fired stun grenades and rubber bullets to disperse large crowds that hurled rocks, glass bottles and rubbish onto the N2 in a protest that began shortly before 5pm. The motorway was closed for more than 3 hours.

[Jolly Red Giant]

72,000 workers - petrol station attendants, car mechanics and car dealership workers - have issued strike notice from 2nd Sept demanding pay increases.

[Tolstoy]

I would love to see the psuedo leftist ANC break apart and for the people to move to real socialist alternatives (if your familiar with the CWI than you get my pun).

I pray that people will tire of the ultimately rightist party and truly take the side of the good working men who gave their lives for the South African labor movement. The COPE party has already begun a trend of splitting from South African politics. The one concern is preventing parties like the VF Plus and the Democratic Alliance and the Inkatha Freedom Party from becoming too strong in the wake of the ANC coming down

[Jolly Red Giant]

Current estimates of workers currently involved in strike action in South Africa put the number at 335,000 with strikes looming in the gold mines to be added next week.

[synthesis]

Stupid statement of the week
At the Annual Labour Law Conference, which ran from July 30 to August 1 at the Sandton Convention Centre, in Johannesburg economist Andrew Levy stated that South Africa needs to tackle the “woeful and complete lack of economic literacy” among its working population, including mineworkers. Levy claimed that “Until workers understand economic reality, they are going to continue making unrealistic wage demands because they believe it’s attainable,”

NEWSFLASH - Mr Levy – the economic reality for millions of workers and their families is poverty, shantytowns, violence, oppression and brutality designed to preserve the profits of the mine owners and the capitalist class in South Africa.

I don't know if I'd call this a "stupid statement," per se. It sounds to me like he's calling for someone to figure out how to better promote bourgeois propaganda among the workers in South Africa.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Strike in South African Goldmines

Upwards of 80,000 miners working in the goldmines in South Africa have begun strike action in a pay dispute with the mining bosses. A further 40,000 goldminers could join the strike in the coming days. Workers are demanding pay increases of between 60%-150% for workers earning around €400 per month. The mining bosses have offered increases of approximate 6.1% (just below the rate of inflation)

Talks in the Platinum and Coal mining sectors are also on the verge of collapse leading to the potential that another 300,000 mine workers will embark on strike action. Anglo Amarican Platinum announcement that they have begun sacking 3,300 platinum miners in Rustenburg is likely to be met with strike action by the workers committees in the AmPlats mines.

The Workers and Socialist Party have issued a statement giving its full support to the striking workers -

The Workers & Socialist Party gives its full backing to the gold mineworkers who begin their strike action at midnight tonight. WASP calls on the NUM organised workers taking strike action to appeal to their brothers and sisters in Amcu to join them to bring about a complete shutdown of the gold mining sector until their wage demands are met. WASP calls on the rank and file of both NUM and Amcu to pressure their leaders to give notice of a unified strike. There is a war being waged by the mine bosses against their own workforces. It has been reported that the mine bosses have been preparing themselves to weather a long strike by beefing up security and hoarding billions of rands. They are prepared to try and starve the workers back to work and impose their paltry pay offer of just 6.5%. They want to maintain the cruel irony of having those workers who dig out gold – the symbol of wealth and value – live in abject poverty. There is only one answer to this: workers unity. We call on mineworkers in all sectors to organise strike action in support of the gold workers’ wage demands and against the retrenchments planned across the industry.

It is crucial that in the course of this strike the mineworkers themselves have democratic control over every aspect of the action. It is for the workers to democratically decide on the tactics used, elect those they trust to negotiate on their behalf, and decide on what terms they are prepared to return to work. The best way to do this is to elect independent strike committees, a tactic successfully employed in last year’s sector-wide strike action. It is for the unions – NUM and Amcu – to carry out the democratic mandate of the workers.

WASP stands for the nationalisation of the mines under democratic workers control and management.

WASP is preparing itself for its first electoral challenge in the 2014 national and provincial elections. The cause of the mineworkers will be at the centre of the WASP campaign, and mineworkers themselves will be candidates on the lists.
http://workerssocialistparty.co.za/2013/09/workers-and-socialist-party-backs-gold-strike-and-calls-on-mineworkers-to-widen-strike-action/

[Jolly Red Giant]

Some small scale violence has taken place between members of the NUM and the AMCU with the AMCU claiming that seven of its members were attacked in Sibanye's Beatrix gold mine. In what is clearly a mistaken tactic the AMCU leadership have instructed their members not to recognise NUM pickets and continue working while the AMCU continue negotiations with the Chamber of Mines.

The leaders of the AMCU are claiming that the Chamber of Mines and the NUM are engaged in a conspiracy to undermine the AMCU with a backroom deal already completed between the mine owners for an 8% pay increase that will then be imposed on AMCU members in the gold mines. The AMCU would be forced to engage in unprotected strike action if they resist. If the AMCU leadership believe this to be what is happening then the correct strategy would be to call their members out in support of the NUM and aggitate among the NUM membership against any compromise on their demands. Instructing the AMCU members in the gold mines to pass NUM pickets is playing right into the hands of the mine owners and undermining the potential to organise the gold miners to fight for their demands.

[Jolly Red Giant]

New research has shown that 65% of COSATU shop stewards would support COSATU splitting from the triumvirate of ANC/SACP/COSATU and establishing its own workers party and standing independently in next years election.

On Tuesday Weizmann Hamilton, leading WASP member & general secretary of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM), appeared on Power FM’s Power Hour to discuss developments -
http://www.powerfm.co.za/chris-vick-on-the-anc-alliances-papering-over-the-gaps-in-economic-policy/