It is an undisputed fact that the 2010 world cup presents a platform to showcase our talent in sport and our African culture among the people of the world.

At a national level we organised the collection of many signatures onto a replica of the SA jersey to red card xenophobia as a symbol of solidarity and unity with the peoples of Africa and the Globe.

This world cup takes place at a time when our country has been severely hit by a global capitalist recession, with extreme levels of poverty, unemployment and inequalities.

It also takes place when NUMSA is busy with collective bargaining in the auto, tyre, and motor sector as well as House Agreements including Eskom, Arcello Mettal, and BHP Billiton.

Our demands in this round of negotiations constitute a direct response to the unacceptable levels of inequalities and to ensure a better life for the working class and poor whose lives is dependent on the wages of metal workers to alleviate their plight.

As Numsa general secretary I recently had an opportunity to address captains of industry and human resources practitioners.

Key to this input was an exposure of the fact is the shocking lack of transformation and democratization in the work place uncovered by the well researched document of Cosatu called new the Growth path. We pointed out the following:

• The nature of income inequalities in South Africa shows that the race factor continues to be dominant.

An average African man earns in the region of R2 400 per month, whilst an average White man earns around R19 000 per month. The racial income gap is therefore roughly R16 800 among males.

• Most white women earn in the region of R9 600 per month, whereas most African women earn R1 200 per month. The racial income gap in monthly incomes among women is therefore R8 400. The race gap is therefore overwhelmingly severe among males.

A comparison between African men and White women shows the dominance of race as well. The gap in monthly income between African men and White women is R7 200.

• The most shocking statistic from the recent OECD study is that the level of African wages/salaries relative to white workers fell to 13% in 2008, down from its peak of 16% in 2000, and from 13.5% in 1995. This current level is only 4% higher in relative terms than in 1917.

That is why Numsa members must be ready to back up their demands. We must be ready to support the Cosatu strike against electricity high tariffs when that moment arrives and we must be more than ready to take up the fight to ensure that labour brokers are banned.

That’s the only way that can guarantee decent work and indeed a living wage.

For the World Cup to be hosted in South Africa our government was able within a very short space of time to raise not less than R35 billion to build stadiums and all other infrastructure.

NUMSA takes the view that the very same political commitment and zeal in organizing this successful international tournament is what is required in dealing with extreme and unsustainable levels of inequalities in our county where the extremely rich minority coexist next to an extremely poor majority.

We insist that the liberation alliance led by the ANC, would have to be decisive in pulling together resources and consciously assemble the same billions of rands to build proper infrastructure for our people. We now know it can be done because we did for the World Cup.

Our country desperately needs good quality houses, good roads, good health infrastructure, quality education infrastructure, resourced industrialization.

We applaud the recent ANC government delivery of tractors in Mpumalanga and we think it must become a drive for state led agricultural sector.

It’s a platform that must redefine the rural economy and government must also ensure that all productive land is made available to farm workers and rural communities for agricultural activities and farming.

The ANC alliance government must beneficiate and diversify our minerals, nationalize commanding heights of the economy and all our state enterprises must promote localization in procurement and job creation.

All of these actions must put our country and the continent onto a new growth path. This in our view remains vital if our country is to have capability to absorb thousands of workers who will be jobless as the world cup comes to an end.

As we champion industrialization of South Africa as part of consciously building the economy of the African continent, we should take heed of the historical warning by Vladimir Lenin who explained that the development of capitalism in the 20th century as imperialism – the highest and the last stage.

He said “As capitalism develops, more and more the control of wealth passes to fewer and fewer hands. Big firms eat up small ones.

Huge monopolies grow, both national and international, and a few giant firms dominate whole branches of the national economy.

Banks and other financial institutions buy shares in industrial concerns and the “kings of industry” acquire controlling interests in the banks.

So the two kinds of monopoly capital, financial and industrial, merge with one another.

The imperialists export capital to the sources of raw material and cheap labour, to the countries which are less developed economically, Economic penetration is followed by political domination.

A handful of West-European powers, Japan and the United States of America, seeking higher profits, dominated the whole of Africa, Asia and Latin America, mercilessly looted their natural resources and exploited their people.

The colonial system of imperialism did incalculable damage to these peoples. It held back and stifled their independent economic, political, social and cultural development.

In extreme cases it resulted in the wholesale massacre and near-extermination of indigenous peoples”

The Numsa NEC in May 2010 debated and noted with extreme concern of what has been defined by Cosatu CEC as a new tendency within the ANC representative of individuals who takes on a political posture that is anti Cosatu and anti communist.

The tendency is not dissimilar to what we characterized as the 1996 class project.

They two sides to the same coin and what brings them together is the need to get quick rich and therefore they are very annoyed by Cosatu’s campaign against corruption in particular the call for a life style audit of those who are deployed and in elected leadership positions.

The GS Cosatu has to articulate positions taken by Cosatu CEC in the public domain including the zero tolerance stance of Cosatu on corruption especially of alliance deployees in parliament.

This does not detract from Cosatu and all its affiliates’ campaign for the election of the ANC in all national, provincial and local government elections.

We shall do the same in 2011 local government elections BUT where there are allegations of corruption against any of the alliance deployees in parliament or in the local state we expect our own ANC to move swiftly, investigate and take steps.

The Alliance should have no tolerance within our ranks for corruption and foreign cultures that have a potential to undermine revolutionary and morale standing of the movement of Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Chris Hani, Walter Sisulu and many of our heroes and heroines.

The push for disciplining of comrade Zwelinzima Vavi for simply calling on the ANC to take a tougher stance on those who have been alleged to have committed the acts of corruption is a strange position taken by the ANC when the call comes from the CEC saying where there are allegations, the ANC must investigate.

We have to be consistent and remind the new tendency that the alliance is made up of independent formations.

Cosatu is not an ANC desk but it is an ally and therefore the ANC can have no right to discipline a Cosatu leader when he/she speak in the capacity as a leader of the federation.

We had to be blunt and state categorically that we shall not be dictated by any of the component of the alliance on what to say in the interest of workers.

The voice of workers.

Cosatu is the voice of workers. Once workers has taken a position in their own constitutional structures such a position would have to be articulated by those who are in leadership position even if they are members of the ANC or SACP.

The only option available if any of the components happened not to be happy on a matter involving another component is to convene a bilateral meeting or an alliance meeting to deal with whatever matter of mutual concern.

The Numsa May 2010 NEC was sharp in stating that the ANC is heavily contested by all manner of forces including the capitalist class whose mission is money and greed.

The NUMSA NEC warned that unless workers and the poor swell the ranks of this very important movement in their interest, money and tenderpreneurs’will define who must be in leadership from branch to national level and the movement’s revolutionary character will be dented without working class leadership.

The attempt to charge Comrade Zwelinzama Vavi must not just be a wakeup call but it must be sending a clear message to all working class cadres of the movement who derives their ideas from a working class perspective that swelling the ranks is not a luxury but compulsory because should this new tendency win the day they will privatize the ANC a working class movement barn Cosatu and the Sacp.

In these circumstances it can’t be that the working class is no where to be found, because it is only the working class that is capable of carrying revolution to its logical conclusion.

Comrade Chris Hani had this to say about the same difficult conditions within the movement he sad “it can’t be when things are bad and difficult in the movement against the working class that the working class will take a refuge in the struggle, working class leadership must always take front line”

Source

Numsa News No 2, July 2010