Red Alert: The DA's "real jobs"
Searching for a pretext for yesterday's gimmicky, deliberately provocative march on the ANC's headquarters, the DA posters trumpeted "6 million real jobs". Helen Zille started this diversionary pretext two weeks ago. In a statement she labelled as "bogus" the ANC election manifesto's commitment to creating 6-million work opportunities through the expanded public works programme (EPWP) over the next five years. Zille haughtily dismissed these as only short-term temporary work, not "real jobs".
Of course nowhere does the ANC manifesto claim that EPWP work opportunities are formal sector jobs. Moreover, these 6-million work opportunities are only one of dozens of ANC-alliance election commitments to address the crises of unemployment and poverty.
Unfortunately for Zille, as her colleagues had to quietly remind her, the commitment to a major up-scaling of the EPWP is not the ANC's alone. It's in chapter 3 of the National Development Plan (Zille likes to present herself as the world's greatest champion of the NDP). It's also in the budgets of all three spheres of government, including her own Western Cape administration.
In November last year, when DA City of Cape Town mayor Patricia De Lille tabled her mid-term report she said that the creation of 37,000 temporary EPWP work opportunities was "her proudest achievement". Clearly Zille and De Lille are at cross purposes on this - are these work opportunities just "bogus", or are they an important part of a wider set of interventions to address poverty and unemployment (as Mayor De Lille clearly and correctly believes)?
It was left to the DA's Wilmot James to make a valiant clean-up effort. Not for the first time in the past few weeks, Dr James has been wheeled out to clear up behind the blunders of his boss. James argues that the DA march was not against EPWP jobs as such. But, he says, we must not conflate EPWP "work opportunities" with formal sector jobs -as if anyone in the ANC or government was making that conflation. Let's at least welcome James's reassurance that the DA is committed to up-scaling the EPWP.
Of course, this being the electoral season, his inclination to reduce collective national challenges to inter-provincial ABSA Currie Cup competitions is now on steroids. He boasts that the City of Cape Town recently won "two out of three Kamoso public works awards". Wait a minute Dr James, there were not three but 33 Kamoso awards bestowed by the Department of Public Works last year to acknowledge good performance in the EPWP. Cape Town got recognition by winning two. Well done Cape Town (I mean that sincerely) - but let's keep perspective.
James claims that half of all training in public works programmes occurred in the Western Cape. I don't know where he gets that from. In 2012/13 the WC did not report on training in the programme at all. In the current financial year there has only been very limited reporting on training in the province. As for work opportunities created in the province, over the five-year period 2009 to 2014, the WC has reported 109,000 work opportunities against a target of 204,700 - a mere 53% of the target, making it one of the worst performing provinces.
And, while we are still on the subject of inter-provincial "competition", the most recent StatsSA figures for employment change over the 10-year period 2003-2013 make for interesting reading. They indicate that the WC is sixth, that is, near the bottom of the nine-member table. Limpopo leads the way in percentage terms with a 3,7% positive employment change, followed by Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Eastern Cape, and KZN. In terms of actual increased numbers of employed, Gauteng is ahead with a net increase of 783,000 jobs, followed by KZN. Western Cape is at a lowly 0,8% and 141,000.
Considering that the WC has many advantages that Limpopo or the Eastern Cape do not have, perhaps the next DA march for "real jobs" should be against Zille's own provincial administration! But let's not get too sucked into a DA inter-provincial competition. There are many factors beyond the control of any provincial or national government that account for job creation and job losses.
To blame President Zuma, as the DA does, for an unemployment crisis in SA when we are in the midst of a global capitalist crisis is simply stupid. Moreover, notwithstanding the global crisis and its dire impact on our own economy, we have done relatively well in regaining the 1 million jobs lost in the immediate aftermath of the 2008-9 global turbulence.
James wants to shift the debate from public works to "real jobs". He provides a list of DA policies for "real job" creation - mostly watered-down versions of what the ANC government is already implementing. "Promote redress by improving black economic empowerment", he tells us without a blush.
Just a few months back, James was the leading DA voice opposing BEE! "Break up inefficient state monopolies to increase competition and bring down prices", he says. Significantly there's not a word about the anti-competitive, collusive behaviour of private oligopolies in the food chain, in the construction sector, in telecoms, in banking - robbing the public purse and individual consumers of billions of rands.
"Remove red tape that is stifling small businesses", says James. We agree, and that is exactly what current legislation before parliament is intended to do. But what the DA means by "removing red tape" is free-market deregulation. This is a case where DA neo-liberal ideology clashes with actual DA administration practices.
Ask any street vendor in Cape Town about the constant harassment they experience. Unnecessary red tape is one thing, but effective regulation of small businesses in the interests of job creation, or basic health and other considerations, is another. For instance, tens of thousands of South African jobs are being lost through the illegal importation and sale of fake goods, for instance. This requires, not red tape, but effective regulation.
The DA wants to champion so-called "real jobs" not just "work opportunities". Can they please explain, then, why last year they bitterly opposed raising the minimum wage for temporary seasonal farmworkers from R65 to the current R105? R65 was actually slightly less than the minimum daily stipend for public works participants!
What makes the one a "real job" and the other bogus? The answer is obvious. EPWP work opportunities are about income relief for the poor, about creating public assets and services in poor communities. From a DA class perspective, however, farm-workers are simply labour power to be exploited for super-profits for the few. Now that's a DA "real" job for you!
Cde Jeremy Cronin is SACP 1st Deputy General Secretary. This article appeared in Umsebenzi Online, the online journal of the SACP.
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