COSATU is calling on all workers to come out in their numbers tomorrow to vote for the ANC
2 August 2016
The Congress of South African Trade Unions is calling on all workers to come out in their numbers tomorrow with their families to vote for the African National Congress in the local government elections. Workers have a responsibility of defending and consolidating the gains that have been made since 1994, and also to stop political parties like the DA from taking us back to the dark ages.
The federation is calling on workers to come out and punish the Democratic Alliance for applying some most dishonest tactics to campaign, including using the name of the dead to make their lies sound true and win votes. Using the name of the dead ,who cannot speak for themselves shows both the moral and political bankruptcy of this party. The DA is prepared to do almost anything to steal political power at the service of capital
Workers need to remember that the DA is opposed to their right to strike The DA claims to respect and uphold the constitution but they went to parliament and moved a motion on a Bill, which was effectively calling for the scrapping of the right strike.
They said nothing about the fact that employers are at least equally responsible for strikes, and in many cases more so. Their ultimate intention is to weaken unions through litigations and it was the ANC ,which stood firm and opposed the DA Bill.
The DA is against Collective Bargaining – they have gone to court to have this right taken away.
The DA through Herman Mashaba its Mayoral Candidate in Johannesburg, and the DA’s ideological institutions like the Free Market Foundation ,filed a case with the Gauteng High Court, challenging the principle and practice of extending bargaining councils agreements in South Africa to non parties.
The DA wants to do away with Employment Equity Act
The DA openly opposed the Employment Equity Bill, which is a law to redress the blatant racial discrimination of the apartheid years. Job reservation policies, maintained through “competency certificates”, created a white workers’ monopoly of skilled operators, in areas such as blasting, engine driving and shift supervisors, and prevented black workers from being promoted to any senior management positions. As things stands today in the Western Cape, where the DA is in charge, white people are over represented in positions of management.
Budget- The DA has continuously opposed every budget in Parliament
The DA votes against all government budgets, even when they shift funds to help the poor through social grants, bursaries, job creation, industrial programmes, social expenditure etc.
Land Reform - The DA stand opposed to giving land back to the dispossessed
The DA opposed the Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Act, which allows dispossessed claimants to claim for land lost post 1913 for an additional 5 yrs.
On the extension of Security of Tenure
The DA is opposing the Extension of Security of Tenure Amendment Bill ,which will significantly extend farm workers' rights, including protection from evictions, human rights and living conditions.
On Higher Education – the DA pretends to support the fees must fall campaign but it does not.
The DA is fundamentally opposed to making tertiary education free. The DA has opposed Higher Education Amendment Acts ,which empowers government to hold tertiary institutions accountable for transformation and good governance.
Health- the DA is opposed to free Healthcare and wants to see medical aid companies benefiting from the poor
The DA opposes NHI and supports the profits of the private medical industry over the needs of the public at large. They want to see medical aid members being robbed for profits and their health being sacrificed. The DA chooses profits over the lives and health of our people
The DA is against the Expropriation Bill which is meant to be used by the state to fast track land reform and views it as a threat to big business and the beneficiaries of apartheid.
This bill is at the centre of radical economic transformation and to give land back to the people but the DA vehemently opposed it. It will allow the executive to expropriate land for public use or interest, and sets guidelines for compensation and for dispute settlement measures. The DA lied saying that the Bill would cause job losses.
We know who liberated us, we know our enemies and the DA is surely not a friend of the workers and the working class. On the 3rd August, tomorrow let us come out and vote for the ANC; a party that has stood with us through the hard times and that continues to listen to our voice.
Workers should also refuse to be hoodwinked by the proto fascists organisations ,who indicate left but turn right. The workers should see them for what they are – political and ideological chameleons, who have dressed themselves in borrowed Marxist – Leninist robes. We have a duty to continually undress and expose them.
Vote ANC in defence of the revolution.!
Vote ANC for economic transformation!
Issued by Sizwe Pamla, National Spokesperson, COSATU, 2 August 2016
