South African Communist Party
22 July 2020
The South African Communist Party (SACP) is concerned about the impact of the government’s decisions in relation to education and public transport on the working-class. The government should engage with trade unions in the basic education sector meaningfully and in good faith, and thus take the calls made by the labour movement seriously. The government must consistently draw guidance from science in handling the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, as emphasised by the South African Democratic Teachers Union in its engagements with the Department of Basic Education.
It is contradictory for the government to provide for a 100 per cent load factor in local mass transport on the one hand, while emphasising social distancing in schools on the other, as if the learners, teachers and other workers in schools do not use the same mass transport in which there is no social distancing. The failure by the government to act consistently and in line with the risk-adjusted approach that it has so effectively communicated potentially de-legitimises the entire mechanism required to containing the spread of Covid-19.
The SACP strongly cautions the government against any approach that may worsen the inequalities that were entrenched in education before Covid-19 and expose learners, teachers and other workers in schools to Covid-19. A sound approach on schools must be guided by the need to protect life as the primary goal. Whether learners, teachers and other workers in schools are protected cannot be judged by looking at what is expected inside school premises only but requires a holistic view of every link in the chain of their movement from home to school and their travel back from school to home. This requires ensuring that all schools meet the norms and standards and have the capacity required to protect learners, teachers and other workers against Covid-19. The government must systematically roll back inequalities in education in the terrain of the fight against Covid-19.
The SACP is deeply concerned about the employment and working conditions of taxi drivers, who, as all workers in the economy, must be covered in terms of applicable labour law. The SACP expresses its support for the Congress of South African Trade Unions in bringing attention to the plight of taxi drivers and calling for compliance with labour law.