SACP MAY DAY MESSAGE 2011

The SACP fully supports the three key slogans that COSATU has chosen for this year's May Day:

• Consolidate People's Power!
• Mobilise for an ANC local elections victory!
• Advance the New Growth Path for full Employment!

Across South Africa many things have changed

Together, working with our ANC-led government, we have begun to change our country, our communities, and our lives.

...But we must still do much more

While many of us now have access to housing and services, there are still long waiting lists. Some municipalities are doing good work, some are not. The levels of unemployment and income inequality are unacceptable. Corruption is a scourge.

Faced with these challenges, the bosses and their media want us to lose heart

Day in and day out the capitalist bosses and their media spread a message of despair. It's designed to make workers and the poor lose heart.

Yes, there are many challenges - but the capitalists want us to lose trust in our vote, to lose hope in democracy. They want us to lose confidence in the government we've voted for, and in the organizations we've built in struggle over many years. 

They want to distract us from the super-profits they are making. They want us to forget it's their apartheid capitalist economy that's still creating the crises of unemployment, poverty and inequality.

They want to divide us. They want us to fight factional battles amongst ourselves. They want us to run after the scraps they toss to us in our villages, townships and squatter camps - while they continue to live off super-profits in their wealthy suburbs.

Above all, they want us to forget how we once defeated apartheid. It was worker power in factories, farms, mines and shops; it was popular power in our communities that rolled back white minority rule. We used that power to defeat apartheid, and in 1994 we used that power to vote overwhelmingly into power an ANC-led government.

Now the bosses want us to lose faith in our democratic state. They want to drive a wedge between the state and the majority. They want us to think of PEOPLE'S POWER (insofar as we still remember it) as only our power OUTSIDE of the state, and not our collective power INSIDE and OUTSIDE of the state. This is why the bosses and their media are forever encouraging COSATU or the SACP to fight elections on our own - it's not because they want us to win. It's because they want to divide our majority power. They want to weaken state power. What they fear above all else is the consolidation of popular power in and outside of the state.

State power is important and we must use it - progressively, democratically. We must COMBINE our power in the state, with our organized power in our communities, in factories, shops, farms, banks and mines to drive ongoing transformation that benefits the workers and poor of our country.

For this reason the SACP says: LET US BUILD A POWERFUL DEMOCRATIC PUBLIC SECTOR

For the bosses, for the rich and wealthy, the public sector is something they hardly need and which they don't like.

They can send their children to private schools. They can go to private hospitals. They can afford to pay for private security guards. They have their own private transport. They can rent satellite TV, or play tennis and swim in their large homes or in their fancy private clubs and golf estates.

They don't need state schools. They don't need public hospitals. They don't need public transport subsidized by the state. They don't need a public library, or a municipal swimming pool, or a community centre. They don't need RDP houses, and they don't need social grants to survive.

They don't need a public broadcaster that is legally obliged to broadcast in all 11 official languages. They don't need the SA Police to patrol their streets - they can afford to pay privately for all these things.

This is why they call for privatization. This is why they support contracting out municipal services - so that they can make a private profit out of what is supposed to be a public service.

But for workers and the poor - without state schools, without public hospitals, without transport subsidized by the state, without a public broadcaster, or a civic centre, or a public library - there is no chance of education, there is no chance of health-care, there often is no chance of moving from one place to another, there is no chance of listening to radio in your own language.

Defending, consolidating and building a strong and democratic public sector is absolutely key for defending and advancing our democracy and for building a better, more equal SA. Building democratic State Power is part and parcel of building People's Power.

And so we must defend - and not destroy - our public sector. We must build trust in the public sector.

ROLE OF PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONS

This is why our unions in the public sector have a special responsibility. Our NEHAWU's, SADTU's, SAMWU's, POPCRU's, SASFU's must, of course, robustly defend their own members' interests. But they must never allow a gap to open up between themselves, and the working class communities they serve in their capacity as public servants - as health-care workers, as teachers, as municipal workers, as policemen and women. Our public sector workers must be in the forefront of batho pele - of building our people's confidence in and support for public institutions.

It is our public sector unions that must lead the battle against corruption in government. It is they that must blow the whistle on corruption and tenderpreneurship.

If we lower our guard for a moment, if we mess up with state power, if we open up a gap between poor communities and the state - through corruption, or through police brutality, or through neglecting our responsibilities to our patients, or our learners - then we will play directly into the hands of the bosses and their praise-singers in the media who want to roll back the public sector.

OPPOSITION PARTIES

Every time we have an election, there is a whole media industry that clicks into action, supporting anything that is anti-ANC, anti-Alliance.

Once upon a time, the UDM was held up as the "new kid on the block" that would finally take black voters away from the ANC-alliance. It flopped.

In 2004 all the talk in the media was about the ID - the so-called "new kid on the block". It wasn't a new kid at all. It was just Patricia de Lille and a few opportunists recyling their political careers. The ID flopped.

In 2009 it was COPE that was the "new kid on the block" that was going to deal the ANC-alliance a massive electoral blow. It, too, wasn't a new kid - it was just old politicians, motivated by personal careerism, recycling themselves. COPE split from the ANC, and then it split from itself. It too has flopped.

THE DA's REAL TRACK RECORD

This year, the media has run out of supposed new kids - so now it has turned to its old sweetheart - the DA. It is a DA that is desperately trying to prove that it is not dominated by white suburban interests. It is trying to project a non-racial image - with that serial opportunist De Lille and a born-free, Model C-school and the boss lady. Two stooges and a madam.

The DA is trying to present itself as a serious alternative to the ANC-alliance. However, we should not take them lightly. They are not UDM, nor the ID, nor COPE - they have money, they have media support.

They want to boast about how "well they run" the City of Cape Town, compared to ANC-run municipalities.

So let us remind ourselves about Cape Town under DA rule.

Cape Town is the most unequal city in SA - the rich are very rich and the majority are poor;

The DA conducted its own independent audit of Cape Town to test public opinion. But when the results came through, they kept them very secret. Their own independent audit showed that while those living in wealthy suburbs were happy with DA rule, the great majority of African and Coloured poor people - those living in places like Khayelitsha and Mitchell Plain - were seriously unhappy. The DA hushed up these findings. It was only when these results were leaked to the media that the DA was forced to make them public;

In Cape Town, the DA has implemented "Special Rates Areas" - these are rich suburbs where, if a rate-payers' meeting agrees, then in exchange for higher rates, the DA-controlled municipality provides EXTRA municipal services to these areas that are ALREADY well-serviced. What does this mean? It means that inequality in Cape Town is not just bad - it is increasing. Instead of REDISTRIBUTION of services to areas that most need them, we get a market-driven distribution to those that already have more than enough.

The DA has a poster saying that they "deliver to all" - so what have they delivered to the poor in Cape Town?

In Khayelitsha they delivered open toilets; - the Human Right Commission and the Cape High Court have since found the building of open toilets to be the worst violation of human rights

In Hangberg in Hout Bay they delivered rubber bullets and batons - because they see Hout Bay as a place for the rich and for foreign tourists. They don't want the fishing community that has lived there for decades.

On New Year this year, they delivered a foreign "specialist" to teach the people of Cape Town how to run a street carnival - something that the Minstrels have been doing for over a century, back to the times of slavery itself. But the DA thinks it knows best - the DA-run council even tried to stop the century-old tradition of Minstrel parades on Tweede Nuwejaar.

Yes, the DA claims to "deliver to all", but their track record speaks for itself. In parliament the DA has opposed every single piece of progressive labour legislation. They say that the labour market in SA is "too inflexible". Every worker in SA knows what a "flexible" labour market means. It means giving the bosses a complete free hand to hire and fire at will. It means removing all of the hard-won victories scored by our trade union movement over many decades. It means a labour-market dominated by labour brokers and other vultures.

This is what the DA wants to deliver to the working class. This dangerous Party must be stopped in its tracks.

Which is why the SACP says:

FORWARD TO A MASSIVE ANC-ALLIANCE LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTION VICTORY ON MAY 18. 

The SACP is throwing its full weight behind the ANC's local government election campaign. We must ensure an overwhelming ANC election victory. But we must also ensure that we hold our ANC councilors to our election manifesto. No blank cheques!

In particular, the SACP says:

LET US STRENGTHEN LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Let us put an end to outsourcing core municipal functions to tenderpreneurs, to profiteers and other vultures - We must build, not weaken, the capacity of local government. We must ensure sustained local skills development for municipal staff and departments;

Let us reinforce the role of the non-profit social economy sector in municipal services and municipal procurement - including through dedicated support to co-operatives, and other sustainable livelihood activities in our communities;

Let us ensure every municipality develops a comprehensive anti-corruption strategy - corruption diverts public resources into private pockets; corruption is at the root of many factional squabbles; corruption plays into the hands of those who want to subvert democracy. Together, we must stamp out this scourge.

LET US DEMOCRATISE LOCAL GOVERNMENT

This means:

Involving communities in deciding on local development priorities. Councillors must be subject to these development priorities, including in rural areas.

Holding councillors to the legal requirement of convening ward meetings every three months. At these community meetings development priorities must be discussed and progress evaluated

And finally, the SACP says:

LET US CONNECT OUR COMMUNITY STRUGGLES TO THE WIDER STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY AND FULL EMPLOYMENT IN SA

LET US PLACE OUR ECONOMY ONTO A NEW JOB-CREATING GROWTH PATH

Why must the working class and poor still be condemned to live in rural labour reserves, in squatter camps and dormitory townships? We don't just want more delivery scraps tossed into the same unequal spaces. We want to live where there is work, amenities and resources close to where we stay. We want to live in mixed-income and mixed-use communities. We want to end class apartheid in our countryside, towns and cities.

This is why the SACP says:

We must enforce the ANC's Polokwane conference resolution for a halt on the sale of municipal (and other publicly-owned) land - unless the sale is in line with progressive Integrated Development Plans. The selling off of public property to private speculators and profit-driven "developers" must be halted. If not, we will continue to have green suburbs for the rich and over-crowded dormitory townships for the poor.

We must connect our local integrated development plans to an overall new national growth path and industrial policy action plan - with a focus on job creation, decent work and sustainable livelihoods.

TOGETHER, WE CAN BUILD BETTER COMMUNITIES!

FORWARD TO PEOPLE-DRIVEN LOCAL DEVELOPMENT!

ON MAY 18 - VOTE ANC!

Statement issued by the SACP, May 2 2011

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