The 2021 local government elections (LGE21) outcome marks the end of an era. For the first time since 1994 the ANC, the “party of liberation” has crashed below 50%. The working class has punished the ANC in successive elections over the last decade, but never like this before.
The Marxist Workers Party stands in solidarity with the steel and engineering workers who began national strike action on 5 October. This action on pay is being led by Numsa, the dominant union in the nearly half-million strong workforce. Marches have taken place in Johannesburg and Durban with one journalist, reporting live from the Johannesburg, remarking that this is the largest worker-action seen since the pandemic began.
On Monday 4 October Gauteng EPWP workers will return to the CCMA in Pretoria. The Commission will hear the case on the March 2020 dismissal of over 3,000 workers by the ANC-run Gauteng Department of Infrastructure. The workers had been employed for seven years.
We welcome the re-convening of the Working Class Summit on 23-24 October. The creation of a mass workers party will again be discussed. The Saftu federation is also debating this crucial issue. It remains a controversial topic for the leadership. The SRWP leadership is denouncing the idea of a “mass party” as counter-revolutionary, bourgeois and electoralist. They claim it has no basis in Marxism. Are any of these claims true? What is the way forward for the working class on the political front?
Mining profits are booming. June saw the biggest trade surplus on record. The banks are paying dividends to shareholders again and StatsSA reports that the economy is 11% larger than thought. But unemployment has reached yet another record high. Incomes are falling and poverty is increasing. As the ruling class desperately looks for signs of a post-Covid recovery the inequalities and contradictions of SA’s capitalist economy remain as deep as ever. The few ‘green shoots’ the bosses point to are utterly dependent on the current conjuncture in the world economy and in fact underline the sickness of SA capitalism.
The African Commission of the Committee for a Workers International (CWI) met by zoom in July. The CWI is an international socialist organization that aims to build national sections which intervene in struggles in individual countries but are also part of a worldwide struggle of the working class against capitalism and for a socialist alternative.
Trade union leaders with a majority in the PSCBC have agreed to sign a wage agreement on behalf of public sector workers. This is a serious setback rather than an outright defeat. It is entirely possible to recover from it.
A disaster is unfolding in Cabo Delgado. In 2020 alone there were 570 “violent incidents”. Nearly 3,000 have died so far and over 700,000 have been displaced. Atrocities against the local population are being committed by both the insurgents and the Mozambican army and security forces. For many the SADC intervention may seem necessary to put an end to the possibility of the insurgency spreading. But it will not only fail; it will aggravate the crisis.
On 21 July MWP members visited in Zone 3 of Katlehong, Gauteng. We had learned through the media of the brilliant work of residents to defend their community from rioting and looting, in particular the Motse wa Lijane mall.
Since the imprisonment of former president Jacob Zuma, SA has witnessed the most widespread unrest in decades. Tens of thousands of the poor, the destitute and the hungry have raided supermarkets and shopping malls for food, clothes and other consumer goods. The looting and rioting have seen instances of police outnumbered by the crowds, being pelted with stones and put to flight.
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