“All shall be free to travel without restriction from countryside to town, from province to province, and from South Africa.”
“Child labour, compound labour, the tot system and contract labour shall be abolished.” (The Freedom Charter, 1955).
The National Union Of Metal Workers of South Africa calls on all its members in four sectors of the South African economy, namely auto manufacturing, tyre manufacturing, motor components and retail sector and in the metal, iron, engineering sector to down tools on Wednesday 7th March 2012 to participate in the country wide strike called by COSATU to force the banning of labour brokers and scrapping of the e-tolling system.
In addition NUMSA calls on all the freedom loving people of our country particularly progressive formations, the unemployed, the youth and women to win back the dignity of labour broking workers who are subjected to indecent work and conditions of employment comparable to modern day slavery.
In Numsa’s view our country was liberated by the majority of our people through solidarity action against the apartheid regime and its brutality.
Once more, if we are to defeat labour brokering with all its precarious exploitative conditions, we must be organizing every sector of our society to say no to this cheap labour system which is equal to modern slavery.
Labour brokers use primitive forms of accumulation, by owning a whole worker and selling her or him to any employer!
In three sectors namely Auto, Tyre and Motor where Numsa are organised we have already demonstrated through collective bargaining and industry strike action that the banning of labour brokers can be achieved.
That is why we are calling South Africans to act in unison and in solidarity by joining the COSATU strike on 7 March 2012.
The COSATU strike is about the future of South Africa in which the dignity and labour rights of the worker are respected.
It is about saying no to exploitation and greed that has engulfed our society where particular notorious groups of employers and individuals have completely lost morality.
They have no sense of sharing except to brutally exploit workers.
They are supported by an elitist group of capitalists and neo liberal orthodox economists who have failed to provide answers for the triple crisis of poverty, unemployment and inequality which is threatening to blow this country up.
Our triple crisis has been created by unique racist brand of capitalism.
Labour brokering in South Africa is part and parcel of our form of capitalism which maintains conditions of modern slavery inherent in the labour brokering system.
Labour brokering is human trafficking.
Numsa is firm that labour brokering, like all forms of slavery, cannot be regulated. It must be banned.
This strike action of 7th March 2012 must be understood as a dress rehearsal or launching of a militant and resolute rolling mass action that might have to take the form of a couple of stay-aways unprecedented in the history of our country to ban labour brokers and to send a clear message to both government and business that everything they do must be based on the will of the people.
The public hearings conducted by government saw our people calling for the banning of labour broking in South Africa.
It is time for the government to act and ban labour brokers.
Government and business must know that the future development of this country can never be on the bases of a race to the bottom by the working class in support of this backward primitive system of labour brokering.
The ANC led government must be about the fundamental transformation of the South Africa economy instead of trapping the country into perpetual brutal exploitation and marginalisation of the working class and the poor.
Government and business must wake up and do away with the current neo liberal ,failed , global discredited-toxic economic combination of inflation targeting, high interest rates and address the mess it created it rapidly removed exchange controls by bringing back capital controls.
Government must do away with the current vulnerability of trade liberalization we imposed on ourselves.
Government must take measures to address the stupidly allowed overvalued currency – all of this is a toxic menu combined to kill South African industries.
In fact all these backward measures are driving de-industrialization and destroying our manufacturing capability.
Real industrialization to supply the basic economic and social needs of our people is what is needed by our country and not labour brokers.
Should our government address the above fiscal and monetary aggregates, such action will defend existing jobs and it will create employment that will deliver quality and decent new jobs that will pay a living wage and dent the current crisis of unemployment poverty and inequalities.
Our country does not need labour brokers or privatisation of public roads but full implementation of the Freedom Charter.
The Freedom Charter states two fundamental principles in respect of labour brokers and privatisation of public roads which our national strike action on 7 March 2012 will be about:
On privatisation of public transport and movement the Freedom Charter says: “All shall be free to travel without restriction from countryside to town, from province to province, and from South Africa”
On labour broking the Freedom Charter says: “Child labour, compound labour, the tot system and contract labour shall be abolished.”
The Freedom Charter does not say “reform labour brokers” – it simply and clearly says ABOLISH THEM!
The national liberation struggle against the racist apartheid system was fundamentally about restoring the dignity of Black people in general and Africans in particular which unfortunately the labour the broking system is entrenching.
Worst of all is its subtle anti working class stance as it undermines all workers hard won gains, some of which have been secured during the dark days of apartheid.
It is a system whose ideological and political posture is about lowering expectations of the current generation of workers and presents their gains as a threat.
That is why labour brokers, E-tolling and youth wage subside must go in our country.
We know that our capitalists of all colours are salivating at the prospect of brutally exploiting our youths, given the current extreme levels of youth unemployment in the country.
The Freedom Charter clearly demands the abolition of child labour. Young people, the youths, deserve decent work like everyone else!
We hope our rejection of this super exploitative low-wage system through national strike action will make our Minister of Labour to act in the best interests of the country and ban labour brokers.
Likewise, it is now clear that the privatization of our country’s roads must be halted where the government’s momentum in this direction is strongest as seen in the Gauteng’s e-tolling system which due to come into effect in less than a few weeks.
Numsa rejects the Gauteng e-tolling and we have constantly maintained that E-tolling will present a severe financial drain for the working poor who cannot afford the new tolls.
These tolls are especially destructive to poor people because of the way apartheid planning placed our Gauteng townships at long distances from centrally-located jobs, commerce and recreation.
Post-apartheid decentralization and suburban sprawl has only worsened the apartheid geographical divide.
Numsa therefore calls on all its members, the working class and the middle class across the length and breadth of our country to join COSATU’s nation strike action tomorrow.
It is a legal and fully protected strike action. We, the workers of South Africa, dare not let ourselves down!
Issued by NUMSA National Office Bearers
Contact:
Castro Ngobese
National Spokesperson
Cell: +2783 627 5197
Tel (dir): +2711 689 1702
Source
Numsa Press Release