NUMSA MAY DAY MESSAGE

30 April 2012

"A world without Workers is impossible; a World without Capitalists is necessary - Wealth belongs to all who produce it"

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) salutes all working people and poor of South Africa and the world. The workers' battle cry slogan ‘workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains' remains relevant amidst the deepening crisis of global capitalism, and continued attacks on the working class living conditions worldwide through escalating cost of food, casualisation, grinding poverty, deepening inequalities, commodification of education and health-care and privatisation of public roads.

We are celebrating this year's May Day under the strategic theme "A world without Workers is impossible; a World without Capitalists is necessary - Wealth belongs to all who produce it". We are living in a world where neo-liberal triumphalism has dismally failed to deliver to the working people and poor of South Africa and the world over. The collapse of financial markets in United States (US), Italy and Greece, as well as the growing gap between rich North and poor South, as well as within nations marks a singular failure of neo-liberal prescriptions and a blow to this arrogant triumphalism.

There is a growing dissenting voice, the working class in factories, squatter camps, hostels, rural areas, universities and townships are challenging the hegemony or dominance of Capitalism over our social, economic and political lives.

The ongoing and volatile service delivery protests, the popular rejection of e-tolls on Gauteng Highways, consistent calls for the banning of labour brokers and calls by the working class youth for economic freedom in their lifetime, demonstrate a clear and resolute commitment by our people to overthrow the current barbaric and unequal system of Capitalism.

For NUMSA the time is ripe now to mount a radical and socialist orientated National Democratic Revolution (NDR) as contained in the Freedom Charter.

We are clear as NUMSA that the 1994 democratic breakthrough and ascendency of the African National Congress (ANC) to corridors of power gave us only the political crown without the economic jewelry. It is within this context that the ANC's 1969 Morogoro resolve makes absolute sense: "in our country - more than in any other part of the oppressed world - it is inconceivable for liberation to have a meaning without a return of the wealth of the land to the people as a whole. It is therefore a fundamental feature of our strategy that victory must embrace more than formal democracy. To allow the existing economic forces to retain their interests intact is to feed the root of racial supremacy and does not represent even the shadow of liberation".

We are celebrating this May Day against the background of some of the worst attacks on the Swaziland people by the illegitimate and autocratic King Mswati regime. What King Mswati is doing against the Swaziland people is what PW Botha failed to do, to ban the trade union movement in South Africa as led by COSATU. This cowardly decision by King Mswati regime to ban Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) will be met with popular resistance on the ground.

As NUMSA we call upon all workers to continue giving their unconditional support and solidarity to the people of Swaziland. We also call upon our liberation movement, the African National Congress (ANC) to use its political power and influence as the ruling party in our country to use all platforms for economic sanctions to be imposed on King Mswati's regime.

The people of Swaziland must be free, and our own freedom will be incomplete for as long as the Swaziland people are not free.

Our Right to Strike is Not for Sale!

We call on the workers of our country to celebrate this year's May Day in protest against the proposed New Labour Law Amendments. As South African workers we are facing the greatest threat to our right to strike since the demise of apartheid, given provisions of legislations before parliament are not changed.

We fought hard to win the right to strike to be included in the constitution of our new democratic dispensation.

The bosses and our own government are demanding a return to a compulsory ballot before a strike can commence and that pickets would be limited to strikers. We must totally reject this absurd but brutal attempt to outlaw sympathy strikes and picketing, and weaken break worker solidarity, one of the most crucial weapons in the workers armory.

We reject the proposal to grant organs of the state, particularly the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) the right to intervene in a strike with the consent of the parties. The CCMA cannot be allowed to decide when it is in the public interest to intervene. This is nothing else, but a back door attack to worker's rights to collectively bargain and strike.

As NUMSA we demand that Labour Brokers must be completely banned. They are nothing more than human traffickers, making huge profits by hiring out workers to their client companies as if we are no more than commodities like office furniture or stationary. The Labour Brokers are undermining the ANC-led Alliance electoral commitments of creating decent work and sustainable livelihoods.

In the post Apartheid South Africa in which low wages and being bonded to labour brokers continues to be the burden and suppresses the wages of the majority of workers who are black and African, it is hard to understand why an ANC government could hesitate to ban labour brokers!

Statement issued by NUMSA National Office Bearers, April 30 2012

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