Vote for the ANC on Wednesday!

The Congress of South African Trade Unions is making a final appeal to all its 2.2 million members, all workers and working-class community members to vote in their millions on Wednesday 7 April 2014 for our long-standing ally, the African National Congress.

We need to build on the momentum of our successful election campaign in which COSATU  and the Alliance  were mobilising in every corner of the country leading to the successful May Day and  Siyanqoba rallies held all over the country.

This was evidence showing what the Alliance, united in action, is capable of doing. This momentum must be translated into programme and campaigns beyond elections.

We call on affiliates to ensure that resources are made available for the final mobilisation push and in particular to make transport available to take our people to the voting stations on  7th May from morning until the last voter put the ballot paper in the ballot box. Nothing must be taken for granted!

We dare not lower our guard; elections are but another terrain of struggle which must be won by the people's camp under the leadership of the ANC.

The right to vote was one of the most important victories we secured in 1994, a victory for which many were assaulted, imprisoned, tortured and even murdered by the apartheid regime. We owe it now to the memory of those revolutionary fighters not to throw away the opportunity to vote.

We also demand that no workers must be denied this hard-won right by their employers, and we echo the words of President Zuma on 5 May 2014, when he said: "Employers, especially farm owners, must allow people to go and vote."

Some  employers like Sun City, are allegedly putting up notices warning their workers that those who are scheduled to work on May Day and Election Day must report to work.

This is absolutely intolerable. All workers have a constitutional right to be given time to vote. That is why we are continuing with our fight to have election days and commemorative public holidays declared as non-trading public holidays, so that employers cannot deny workers their rights just so that they can keep making big profits.

We commend the Department of Labour for issuing their statement to employers calling on them to release workers on the Election Day. Any employer who will defy this sacred call must be facing the might of the law. 

We have just celebrated 20 years in a democratic country which respects human rights. The best way to celebrate our 1994 victory is to give a new and bigger mandate to the party which for 101 years has led, and continues to lead, the struggle for democracy and freedom - the African National Congress - which has a solid track record of taking the national democratic revolution seriously.

It has liberated workers in this country from colonialism and apartheid and defeated the parties who want to turn the clock back to the days of racism and exploitation. They may now be making fiery and radical-sounding promises but we know that they have all failed to present anything better than the record of the ANC since 1994, and what the ANC offers the working class in its 2014 manifesto.

Let us remember the wise words of Comrade Nelson Mandela: "The struggle that will free us is a long, hard job. Do not be deceived by men who talk big with no thought for tomorrow. Freedom is not just a matter of strong words. Neither is it simply brave men and heroic deeds. Impatience, which makes men lose their heads, will not bring freedom". 

Under ANC government workers have secured many improvements in our lives both at work and in our communities. Our democratic constitution, and many labour laws, protect workers from abuse, exploitation and discrimination and ensure safe and healthy working conditions and better job security.

We have also won concrete measures to improve our lives at home, such as electricity, water and housing, the right to access information, and accountability of public enterprises.

The 2014 manifesto commits the ANC government to do more to build on these foundations, including promises to:

a) Strengthen the Employment Equity Act to force employers to report unequal incomes in all wage levels and submit plans to reduce inequalities.

b) Ensure that collective bargaining is strengthened in all sectors of the economy.

c) Eliminate abusive work practises in atypical work and labour broking and improving the capacity of the Department of Labour to enforce all the labour laws.

d) Provide accessible, reliable and affordable public transport.

e) Ensure all South Africans have adequate and quality housing.

f) Improve access to quality education, towards the goal of free education.

g) Ensure, through the National Health Insurance system that no-one is denied healthcare for lack of money.

But as always, we are not giving the ANC a blank cheque. As an independent worker-controlled trade union federation we will never stop campaigning to make sure that these and other commitments are quickly and fully implemented and that workers' interests are protected and advanced.

We still have a long way to go before we can claim we have overcome the legacy of apartheid and colonialism. We have laid the foundations for a free, democratic, non-racial and non-sexist society but we are still far from realising this goal. The struggle continues and the ANC still has a revolutionary duty, as both the ruling party and a liberation movement, to unify our people for the attainment of the Freedom Charter's vision.

We shall continue to campaign on our own and working with our alliance partners to campaign for the total ban of labour brokers  and the scrapping of e-tolls.  We shall continue to work within the Alliance and campaign for a national minimum wage and for the economic and labour market chapter of the National Development Plan to be completely redrafted to bring them into line with the ANC's Conference resolution for a radical economic transformation of our economy.

The improvements in our lives we have today were won by a combination of strategies which included progressive legislation passed in parliament by the ANC and the  struggles waged in the streets by COSATU. That is why, while we call on all workers to vote for an overwhelming victory of the ANC, at the same time we urge you to build and strengthen COSATU and other alliance structures for the tasks which lie ahead!

The ANC has a consistent track record of being a reliable ally of workers since its birth in 1912. No other party will help advance your rights. A vote for the ANC is a vote to continue improving life at work, guaranteeing workers' rights, and advancing the transformation of our economy and society.

The struggle for liberation in our country was led by the ANC and its alliance partners. So it is crucial for workers that the ANC achieve a decisive and overwhelming mandate to take these policies forward.

Your future is in your hands; do not destroy it! Vote for the ANC on Wednesday!

Statement issued by COSATU, May 5 2014

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