NUMSA SUPPORTS STRIKING ILANGA NEWSPAPER JOURNALISTS/WORKERS!
11 April 2012
The KwaZulu-Natal National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) supports the ongoing strike by ILanga Newspaper workers or journalists for a living wage and improved conditions employment. This historic strike action byILanga Newspaper workers or journalists is consistent with the broader struggles waged by the working class for fair and equitable distribution of wealth at the point of production (see Witness report).
This strike should further serve as a pilgrimage of workers resolve to smash the neo-liberal accumulation trajectory which has enriched few Whites males and plunged the majority Black African working class into inferior conditions, squalor, poverty and underdevelopment as can been seen in rural parts of our province, townships, hostels and squatter camps.
We call on the striking workers or journalists to use this strike also to demand that the Protection of State and Information Bill includes a public defense clause in sync with popular aspirations of our people as encapsulated in the Freedom Charter and various laws adopted by the new dispensation. We also urge the striking ILanga Newspaper workers to unleash their militancy geared towards lowering the cost of living, as opposed to lowering the cost of doing business in the post Apartheid and modern day Capitalist South Africa.
We are not surprised by the loud silence of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), as a shareholder in conjunction with an imperialist German national Arthur Koninikramer on this ongoing strike action. Since its formation the IFP has never been on the side of the poor and it has always been flirting with those who treating Black African workers as cheap labourers.
The continued malodorous arrogance displayed by the ILanga Newspaper profiteers, which is profiteering from government advertisements and other public entities, is indicative of their intentions to maintain and reproduce the apartheid Bantu income inequalities amidst the deepening crisis of poverty, mass unemployment, escalating costs of basic necessities, fuel and transport to the detriment of the workers and the poor in the province.
As NUMSA, we call on our sister union, the Communications Workers Union (CWU) to play a front-line role and lead this ongoing strike action by ILanga Newspaper workers or journalists. We call on the ILanga Newspaper owners to concede to the legitimate demands of the striking workers, such as 10% wage increase, democratic control and public ownership of the ILanga newspaper; and transformation of both the newsroom and management to be reflective of our country's racial demographics.
We call on the ANC-led government in KwaZulu-Natal, as democratically elected by the people of the province, to nationalize the ILanga newspaper in the interest of preserving its rich heritage and legacy of the first founding President of the ANC Cde John Langalibalele ‘Mafukuzela' Dube.
Statement issued by Mbuso Ngubane, NUMSA KZN Regional Secretary, April 11 2012
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