“Gender struggles for changing the social discourse – to a right to gender equality”

1^st Deputy President Speech: 

“Numsa’s Political Perspectives on Class struggles in South Africa Today.”

“Numsa is a revolutionary formation, a red trade union, playing a leading role in the defeat of capitalism and the exploitation that is associated with it. In that role we are unashamedly Marxist-Leninist, rooting ourselves in the traditions of Marx and Lenin. So we defy the boundaries between nations that are set up to divide workers as we proclaim ourselves as proletarian internationalists. That tradition also gives us democratic centralism, that combination of robust, vigorous and democratic debate with the discipline of marching together when we have made a decision. That combination makes us what we are proud to be – a red union.”
(Numsa National Congress, Durban, 2012)
National Gender Chairperson,
Comrades participants in this important Gender Workshop,
All protocols observed!
On behalf of both the Numsa Central Committee and the Numsa National Office Bearers, please let me welcome all of you to this important gender mainstreaming strategic, monitoring and evaluating workshop for the year 2014 – 2015.
I must make it clear that all of us gathered here have a revolutionary duty to work very hard during this workshop, to be extremely disciplined, to fully participate in all the work of the workshop and to make sure that when we leave this workshop, the work we came to do has been done.
Comrade Chair, I want everyone in this workshop to know that in Numsa we do not regard women as inferior to men, nor do we regard men as superior to women.
We believe that our history of male domination of society is not a natural and logical consequence of any inferiority of women to men. Nor do we believe that under capitalism, the superior position generally enjoyed by men is as a result of their superiority to women.
We believe in Numsa, as a Marxist-Leninist inspired socialist trade union, that men and women are borne equal, but oppressive and exploitative societies teach boys to pretend that they are superior to girls, and girls to pretend that they are inferior to boys, in order for society to oppress women.
In Numsa we are clear that the capitalist system, which is also based on the free and super exploitation of female labour, cannot allow for men and women to be equal. Capitalism benefits from absolutely free biological and social labour of women in the home and community.
It is therefore our revolutionary task that as we fight for the equality of men and women in society, and for the abolition of the oppression of women, we must at the some time always remember that we will only win this fight if we also destroy the economic and social foundation today – capitalism – of the oppression and domination of one gender against another.
The world will never know peace, full human development and happiness for as long as one half of humanity lives in gender bondage to another.
Allow me also to take this opportunity to record Numsa disappointment with President Yoweli Museveni of Uganda who has just signed a draconian law against homosexuality in Uganda.
We think that punish adult lovers who are not biologically related in any way, who are capable of consenting to a sexual relationship freely, a relationship that harms no one, is neither African nor progressive. We condemn any view that holds that African cultures are frozen in history and do not grow.  We do not hold the view that Africans are any different from any other human race!
We also, however, strongly condemn rich Northern countries that are using the matter of homosexuality as a blackmailing tool, in their social and economic dealings with countries of the South.
We think that financial and economic blackmail will only unite conservative rightwing African leaders, and enable them to mobilise anti homosexuality sentiment behind their oppressive stances.
We think that one route to take is to openly attack the existing patriarchal foundations of all families and sexual relationships in the whole world, not just in Africa.
In this workshop we must plan how we in South Africa in general and Numsa in particular, must protect gay and lesbian South Africans from stigmatization and violence, which is quite common in our society, despite the protection the Constitution gives South Africans.

1. A. The World today

Allow me, Comrades, to repeat here the Numsa NOBs March 2014 correct working class political analysis of the world today, to describe where we are.
It is impossible to deny that the world has seen the most severe crisis of the global capitalist system.  And, there is no end in sight, to this crisis.
More than anything else, what makes the current systemic and structural global crisis of capitalism more dangerous and frightening than in the past is the total intellectual, ideological, political and moral bankruptcy of the world capitalist leaders and their capitalist theorists: they have no answer to what increasingly appears to be the worlds relentless progression towards mass poverty, world wide unemployment, growing extreme global inequalities within and between nations of the world, vicious and extremely violent civil and international wars, global warming, environmental destruction – all pointing to the eventual destruction of our Earth and all life on it.
The neoliberal “Washington Consensus” has been completely discredited and confirmed dead especially by the 2007/8 global financial capitalist crises.
There is no alternative to discarding the theories and practices of capitalism, if we must save the Earth and its living systems.  No amount of cosmetic reforms either in the centre of the global capitalist system nor anywhere in its periphery can hide the most obvious fact today: at a time when humanity has the most profound knowledge and technology, the world capitalist system of private greed risks all our lives and the very Earth we live on.
Mankind today is faced with one choice: abandon the capitalist system or perish by it.
We at Numsa have no illusion that only a total destruction of capitalism and all it represents, can save the Earth and give birth to a new civilisation, a new reordering of common and democratic ownership, production and consumption patterns along a higher human life and Earth respecting human civilisation. Such a civilisation is Socialism.
We must ensure that in this workshop, this new reordering of common and democratic ownership, production and consumption patterns along a higher human life and Earth respecting human civilisation also includes making sure that men and women are equal in all spheres of human activity.
B.  South Africa today
Numsa, after analyzing the past 20 years of our work in the ANC led Alliance, we have come to the simple conclusion that the ANC led Alliance is no longer a revolutionary formation. Why?
Because 20 years after 1994, the majority of Black people, more than 26 million, live in absolute poverty. Meanwhile, the white population and a small black elite have become very rich over this period.
Black people still live far away from work in the same locations and shacks (which have in fact increased after 1994), go to poor and backward government hospitals, our children continue to receive an education very inferior to that of white kids, black women continue to be the majority as domestic workers, violent crime is very common in all black communities and so on.
We now know that the Freedom Charter was dumped during the negotiations well before 1994, so that white people could keep their wealth and land after the “democratic breakthrough) in the “new South Africa”.
Since 1994, the ANC government has been following social and economic policies that favour big business and punish the working class.  This is why today young people when they finish matric, college or university cannot find work, but still the ANC government thinks the solution to this problem is to give money to the bosses so that they can employ the youths and fire their fathers and mothers!
Numsa has consistently raised these problems within Cosatu and with the SACP and the ANC, which explains why today, in Cosatu, those who are looking for an exit strategy into ANC positions or in government want Numsa out of Cosatu.
GEAR in the Mangaung ANC Conference last year became the National Development plan. Numsa has condemned the NDP.
Our analysis has correctly shown that the NDP is another plan for the bosses to continue to milk the South African working class.
In all our black communities, there is war in the form of so-called service delivery protests. Meanwhile our people hear that more than 2015 millions of rands have been spent on President Zuma’s Nkandla home.
Mass poverty, unemployment and extreme inequalities affect women and youths very much.
These and many other anti-working class behaviors of the ANC and the SACP finally made Numsa to call for a special congress to assess the situation and decide how to mobilise the working class for itself.

1. B.   Numsa Special Congress

In the Numsa Congress we resolved the following, among others:

1. That Numsa will take to Cosatu its decision to persuade Cosatu to break the Alliance.
2. That Numsa in the 2014 elections shall not support any political party, nor shall it pay any political levies. Members are free to support any party of their choice at their own cost and time.
3. That Numsa will form a United Front of the working class for the radical implementation of the Freedom Charter and for the fight against neoliberal capitalism.
4. That Numsa shall explore the Movement for Socialism in South Africa.
5. That Numsa shall now expand its scope to include the value chains we organize in, and to include other sectors such as energy, construction, chemicals and mining.
6. That a Service Charter must be the basis for providing quality services to all our members, and for growing the union.

I can report here that work has begun on all these important resolutions. This workshop must decide how we promote in Numsa the full participation of both male and female Numsa members in these resolutions.
C.  Numsa and Cosatu 
We understand Cosatu, a federation the unions, which came together to form Numsa, worked so hard to create, as being the following:

1. a. Cosatu is a worker controlled and democratic trade union federation.  
2. b. Cosatu is a Revolutionary Socialist Federation. 
3. c. Cosatu is an anti-imperialist federation; it fights against foreign capitalist domination. 
4. d. Cosatu rejects all forms of cultural, male chauvinist and racist prejudices. 
5. e. Cosatu is a militant federation. 
6. f. It is a transformative federation. 
7. g. Cosatu is a champion of working class democracy. 
8. h. Cosatu believes in working class power, and advocates worker control not only of the progressive trade union movement, but of society as well. 
9. i. Cosatu believes in the revolutionary power and unity of the working class, which is why it champions the formation of one union in one industry and one federation in one country. 

In our opinion, it is these values and their articulation, which is at issue in Cosatu today. On one hand, there are those among Cosatu leaders who see a Cosatu guided by the values above as a threat to their potential careers in the ANC or its government. These leaders have long abandoned Socialism.
On the other hand, there are those leaders such as are in Numsa and the affiliates Numsa is working together with, who are determined to defend and advance the ideals for which Cosatu was founded, including defending a Socialist Cosatu.
Given the abandonment of a radical NDR by the ANC and the cooptation of the SACP into the ANC and its government, it is inevitable that Cosatu must be plunged into crisis by the fight to the death between these two class positions in Cosatu – one for a Cosatu that simply transmits the wishes of the right wing ANC nationalists among the working class and the other which wants to fight for a Cosatu with its original values.
Numsa has thus become the “enemy within” among the Cosatu leadership clique that is imbedded in the ANC and SACP.  It so happens that this clique is numerically strong in the CEC of Cosatu.
This pro rightwing ANC and SACP clique in Cosatu wants to engineer the expulsion of Numsa from Cosatu. It has already engineered first the paralysis, and later the suspension of the General Secretary of Cosatu – Zwelinzima Vavi.
This right wing Clique ignores the Cosatu Constitution at will. It has refused to abide by the Cosatu Constitution that demands that when a third of Cosatu affiliates demand the convening of Cosatu Special Congress, the President of Cosatu must convene such a Congress or be replaced by a convener.
This rightwing clique, knowing very well that its positions have no mandates from its own members, is very scared of a Special Congress because it knows the Special Congress, besides exposing this right wing, may also trigger leadership removals in their unions.
Numsa’s positions are very clear, and quite simple:

1. Zwelinzima Vavi’s unconstitutional public humiliation, harassment and suspension must be lifted immediately.
2. All mischievous and unconstitutional efforts to frustrate and expel Numsa from Cosatu must stop forthwith.
3. A Cosatu Special Congress as requested by the appropriate number of unions must be convened immediately, to resolve all the causes of the crisis in Cosatu.
4. Numsa will do everything possible to achieve these objectives, including using the courts to stop the violations of Cosatu Constitution.
5. Numsa is calling upon all members of Cosatu affiliates to defend their federation from being swallowed into the ANC/SACP right wing camp.

In the meantime, Numsa continues to run with its section 77 campaigns.
D.  Conclusion
Comrades, we are in a strategic planning workshop to mainstream gender in all our work, as Numsa.
Strategic thinking and planning requires that we stay focused on the strategic objectives of the Union.
I have told you that we are a union that believes in socialism. Everything we do must help us to move closer to socialism.
We are now busy building a United Front of all South African workers. We are working towards the Movement for Socialism.
We are going to take to the streets to campaign for the implementation of our Section 77 demands.
We must be united, always disciplined, always focused on our work, be brave, courageous and confident that we shall win the war for a socialist South Africa, and world.
Amandla!
Christine Olivier
Numsa 1^st Deputy President
3^rd March 2014