SACP Statement on May Day, 1 May 2023

1 May 2023

On this May Day the South African Communist Party (SACP) salutes the workers who stood up in the history of our country to organise themselves into progressive trade unions, to wage the historic struggle against the exploitative system of capitalist production, its racist and sexist articulations, and its forms of oppression and domination—notably colonialism, apartheid and imperialism.

May Day originates from the general strikes by militant workers in Chicago, the United States of America, in 1886. This month marks the 137th anniversary of that historic struggle, notably including the battle for the reduction of the ordinary working-day to eight hours. Today, we pay tribute to those workers, against whom the imperialist regime of the USA reacted violently and later by legislative means to cripple May Day.

In the history of our country, the role played by the Communist Party in building the progressive trade union movement, in supporting and in taking part in the struggles the progressive trade union movement led, is unmatched. For example, African mineworkers embarked on a widespread strike in 1946, unseen in the history of our country, with the active involvement of communist cadres at the core. Nearly 100,000 workers took part in the strike, which brought down operations at 13 mines either completely or in part.

We therefore also want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the countless communist leaders and grassroots activists who took part in worker organisation and just struggles in the history of our country.

The apartheid oppressors reacted by imposing the Suppression of Communism Act, in 1950, to ban the Communist Party and any communist activity in our country. This made our Party to be the first political organisation to be banned in South Africa.

The oppressors went further, widening the scope of their bloody enforcement of the draconian law.

Armed with the support of the capitalist bosses who stood to benefit, the oppressors strengthened their decades-long prohibition of the organisation of black workers into trade unions, continuing with racial segregation. They also used the Suppression of Communism Act to suppress our wider liberation struggle.

As a result, many worker activists and stalwarts of our liberation struggle found themselves arrested. Others were detained without trial. Others were sentenced to prison. Others were executed on the gallows. Others were assassinated inside and outside our country. To this day, we still have families who do not know what happened to their loved ones, whose whereabouts remain unknown because of the oppressors’ deeds.

Let us strengthen and broaden worker unity, defend our hard-won gains and deepen the emancipatory struggle

As the history of our country makes it clear, the recognition in our constitution and the elaboration in our labour law of workers’ rights did not come as a favour.

The workers had to organise themselves into progressive trade unions, build their own power, wage the struggle for the recognition of the workers’ rights on a non-racial and non-sexist basis, and form part of our broader political struggle for liberation and social emancipation.

Today, perhaps more than in the past, we need the unity of organised workers and the working-class at large. This is the core of our message today.

It is through organising the unorganised and forging maximum unity of organised workers, and the working-class at large, that we can successfully roll back the neoliberal agenda that undermines collective bargaining.

The SACP takes this opportunity to reiterate its solidarity with the workers who were dismissed by MAKRO, with their union SACCAWU, and with all the   workers who are engaged in collective bargaining and their trade unions across the economy, in both the public and private sectors. We cannot overemphasise the importance of unity as the weapon of victory, comrades.  

As the SACP, we have committed ourselves to strengthen our efforts to deepen and widen working-class organisation, unity and power, including through forging a popular left front. This has become necessary to move the national democratic revolution into a second, more radical phase, and to advance, deepen and defend the revolution towards the desired outcomes.

The working-class needs to strengthen and exercise its independence at all times, including in situations where it finds itself having to enter into alliances or broad fronts with others.

Reconfiguration of the Alliance

A policy change is critical if South Africa is to overcome the high levels of unemployment, poverty and inequality affecting the working-class, and if we are to build new public electric power generation capacity—to make the provision of electricity uninterruptedly available to the people on a developmental basis.  

Entering into alliances or fronts with others should not compromise but should serve as part of the means to achieve the aims of the working-class.

Our effort to secure the reconfiguration of the Alliance therefore aims to re-assert the aspirations of the working-class.

The change in policy direction that we seek to achieve, having no interests of our own apart from the interests of the working-class, is essential as part of the reconfiguration of the Alliance. In particular, just to highlight a few principles:

- The reconfiguration must make neoliberal policy prescripts, including austerity, as well as state capture and other forms of corruption, a thing of the past.

- There must be thoroughly democratic, consensus-seeking consultation on both policy and the selection of those who should be chosen to implement it in the state at all levels, with Alliance inclusivity a key criterion in both.  

- Instead of accountability only to one Alliance component, there must be accountability to the Alliance under the principle of collective leadership, with common discipline.

- The Alliance must truly function as a political centre of our shared strategy, the National Democratic Revolution, towards the attainment of all the goals of the Freedom Charter, and not least the economic goals.

Gender-based violence and criminality in general

Gender-based violence and criminality in general are among the stubborn challenges that the working-class needs to confront through maximum unity.

Women in the workplace and the economy still face different forms of gender discrimination and abuse, including gender-based violence, as it is still the case in other areas of societal activity. This must come to an end through the common effort of women and men workers both as sisters and brothers and united as a class in pursuit of a non-sexist society.

In the community and elsewhere across society, criminality in general has become the order of the day. This has reached a point where criminality destroys existing investment and discourages new investment, affecting employment creation for unemployed workers in a society ravaged by an unemployment crisis. We cannot overemphasise the importance of united action by the working-class to fight crime and for a decisive state action against criminality.

Issued by Mhlekwa Nxumalo, Acting Spokesperson, Head of Organising Department, SACP, 1 May 2023