NUMSA march and memorandum of demands

1 May 2017

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) celebrated May Day together with the newly formed independent trade union federation SAFTU, (South African Federation of Trade Unions). Thousands of workers marched through the streets of the Durban CBD to celebrate this global workers holiday.

Representatives from FAWU; SAPU; SALIPSU; DITUSA; THOR and NUPSAW all expressed messages of solidarity with the workers movement.

For NUMSA this May Day has special significance because it is an opportunity to reflect on the struggles that workers have waged over the past 30 years. After decades of commitment to the struggle of the working class NUMSA remains the largest, most militant trade union in the country. When other trade unions and left leaning formations like COSATU are imploding because of their ideological bankruptcy, NUMSA is clear that it is a trade union which serves the interests of the working class and the poor.

NUMSA general secretary Irvin Jim reminded deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa that workers will not just sit back and watch whilst government attempts to destroy all the achievements that workers have made over the past 23 years.

“It was workers who fought and died to end the brutal oppressive system of Apartheid. It was through their struggle and sacrifice that our constitutional democracy was attained. Now he wants to tamper with our rights by placing limitations on the right to strike. We will not allow it. We will fight in the courts and we will strike and shut down the economy if need be in order to defend these rights that past generations of workers paid the ultimate price for.”

As NUMSA we endorse the analysis made by SAFTU in its Founding Declaration that the deadly crisis the South Africa is rooted in the CODESA negotiated settlement which led to the end of Apartheid. The settlement conceded democratic political rights, but ensured that the economy remained firmly in the hands of white monopoly capitalism, through the property clause. This led to the capture of the state and the government, the ANC and its allies by monopoly capital, and to the adoption of neoliberal, free-market capitalist economic policies in their interests.

At the same time a section of black capitalists who were excluded from the mainstream capitalist economy, colluded with Zuma, his cronies, public officials whom he appointed, and the Guptas to embark on an orgy of looting of public resources and self-enrichment though the manipulation of tenders in both the state and state-owner enterprises.

The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) opposes both these factions of the ruling class and refuses to take sides to defend either the corrupt looters or the mainstream white monopoly capitalists who are both fighting each other for control of the state and government for their own selfish class interests and not those of the working class and poor majority which they both exploit. We shall never support one butcher against another.

The General Secretary of SAFTU Zwelinzima Vavi warned that former finance minister Pravin Gordhan and his replacement Malusi Gigaba are cut from the same cloth.

“Gordhan and Gigaba are both promoting neo liberal economic policies which have been detrimental to workers and have destroyed the economy over the past 23 years. By pandering to white monopoly capital they have created one of the most unequal societies in the world. As workers we will fight with all our might to resist them. “

The only way out of the crisis is through a mass movement of the working-class based on a program guided by the principles of Marxism-Leninism for the nationalisation of the mineral and manufacturing monopolies, the banks and the land, in line with the aspiration expressed in the Freedom Charter.

Below is a summary of the list of demands which we make in line with our struggles to end the current capitalist crisis in the country and to establish a socialist order. It was handed over to representatives from government as well as Employer associations in the Engineering sector.

Political Demands to the ANC Government

- We demand an end to this racist and colonial class structure of South Africa!

- We demand an end, immediately, of white monopoly capital control and domination of the state.

- We demand an end to white social and economic domination and corruption, and the radical implementation of the Freedom Charter.

Constitutional Demands

- We demand that time has come to amend and or repeal the Constitution to end white economic and social domination.

- We demand the expropriation of land without compensation to enable land justice to be restored in South Africa.

Socio-Economic Policy Demands

- We demand a national Socio-Economic Plan, based on the Freedom Charter, to be produced and implemented, which lays out how the following key demands below, can immediately be achieved.

- Expropriation of white monopoly capitalist establishments, including banks, insurance companies, mines and other monopoly industries, to industrialise the economy.

- Establishment of a state bank, which will consolidate all the state-owned financial institutions to facilitate affordable credit to the progressive class forces.

- The South African Reserve Bank must be nationalized.

- Expropriation of all land without compensation to the ownership of the state.

- Provision of free quality social services such as education, healthcare, housing public transportation and access to basic services such as water and sanitation services

- Wide-ranging and comprehensive audit of employment equity and labour law compliance by all establishments, with a view to penalise non-compliance.

- Abolition of the apartheid and colonial labour market and criminalisation of violation of labour laws.

- Immediate introduction of a wage policy which would introduce a real and meaningful National Minimum Wage capable of sustaining a decent life and abolishing the apartheid wage gap .

- Absolute and unconditional abolition of labour brokering.

- Repeal of the Employment Incentive Act and making work a right.

- Workers pension funds to come under the control of the owners of these funds and to be used for housing and the development of working class communities.

- Abolition of farm evictions

- Criminalise all the abuses farm workers

- Stop, immediately, Eskom’s planned closure of five coal-powered power stations which will lead to 40 000 job losses

- Start the process of engaging all South Africans in the development of a national plan on the transition to socially owned renewable energy

- Prohibit the liquidation of centralised collective bargaining such as is being pursued by the Free Market Foundation and employers in the engineering bargaining council.

- Stop efforts by anyone including COSATU and its sweet heart unions to deny workers their right to join trade unions of their choice.

- Punish and condemn employers who refuse to grant union rights.

- Stop employers in the public service who collude with COSATU unions to exclude independent unions and thereby maintain conservative policies.

- Government must recognize unions that have recruited in parastatals and the public service, and stop undermining the right to freedom of association.

- Make changes to the Pensions Amendment Act and support the call for public servants to be able to use their own pensions for housing for public servants who cannot get loans because of indebtedness and who do not qualify for RDP houses.

- No worker should be forced to sign up to GEMS. It should be a choice and not compulsory, as it does not work in favour of public servants.

- Stop food dumping, for example, chickens, and job losses linked to the sugar tax.

- Stop government abuse of EPWP Workers by making them decently paid full time workers.

- Public Sector workers – all government officials, teachers, nurses, doctors, the police, prison workers, and so on must be professionalized, earn a decent wage to afford them a decent professional life so that we can truly have a public service that serves the country well.

- Debt and credit: Indebtedness of workers must be less than 25%. Maximum deductions of private debt to be 25% to ensure that workers get out of debt-trap.

- The government must introduce capital controls to stop capital flight, cut interest rates, increase tariffs.

- Real measures must be taken, in the light of the demands made above, to reverse deindustrialization, grow manufacturing and to meet the needs of South Africans, especially the black and African working class.

- Government, with immediate effect, must ban exportation of scrap metal, should deliver a affordable electricity tariffs to the economy and to communities.

- Government must put in place measures to reverse de-industrialisation, including compliance by all SOEs and by all levels of government to designations and that they must all procure locally.

- The National Treasury must build independent capacity to ensure enforcement of localisation and play a role in the monitoring and evaluation thereof.

- Beyond nationalisation, in sectors such as platinum government must, with immediate effect, introduce a developmental price so that it can create more jobs in catalytic converters.

- Government must dump the tender system and build the capacity of the state by employing workers directly.

- All boards of the SOEs FDIs must be reconstituted to include the working class and to ensure they all play their rightful roles in the development of the country.

- Government must ban the exportation of scrap metals now.

We do not fool ourselves. We know that without solid mass organization of the working class and all democratic forces in South Africa, none of these measures will be attended to by both the bosses and the government. This is why are happy that we now have a new shield and spear – the South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU).

We are also happy that in the launch of SAFTU, the matter of the political power of the working class was discussed, and the federation will continue to engage with this matter.

In the meantime, we are serving notice to the government and the bosses: ignore us at your own peril!

Aluta Continjua!

Statement issued by Irvin Jim, NUMSA General Secretary, 1 May 2017